


We Lie Awake At Night

by fridaysblues (taemin)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Codes & Ciphers, M/M, Organized Crime, Warning: Kris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 18:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 57,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3391940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taemin/pseuds/fridaysblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Zitao is sixteen, his father dies and it feels like the end of everything. It's only the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Zitao is sixteen, his father dies.

The police report rules it an accident: _"Fell asleep at the wheel,"_ it reads. _"Failed to negotiate turn. Death on impact."_

It's wrong.

It's wrong and Zitao knows it but no one listens, no matter how loudly he screams at the precinct captain to reopen the case. He knows he's out of line—he's watching the faces of his father's co-workers as they shake their heads, averting their eyes because they're too ashamed to watch him come undone. He can read the words on their lips even if he can't hear them: _"Traumatized. Poor kid."_

His father's long-time partner, Detective Tsang, is a little more sympathetic, but barely: "Stop making a scene, Zitao," he says brusquely, voice growling slightly in the back of his throat like he's forgotten to clear it. Zitao looks into his face and feels spite pinching at his face, narrowing his eyes until he's looking through his eyelashes at the face of a man who'd been close enough to be called uncle, a man who'd come to every birthday party and every family dinner and hadn't once indicated his capacity to be _this_ unfeeling. "You're the man of the house now. You can't act like a child anymore."

"Would the man of the house let something like this go?" he growls, fists balling against his side. He wants to take a swing but he's not sure who he wants to hit first and he knows he won't be able to make contact with everyone he wants to before he's restrained and dragged out. "It wasn't an accident," he insists. "It couldn't have been."

"He was tired, Zitao. He'd just worked for fourteen hours—"

Zitao storms out and the room becomes a shaken snow globe as the door swings, papers fluttering in his wake.

It comes to him in bursts every time he lies down and tries to sleep, short transmissions of morse code-pinpricks behind his eyelids, orangey-red and brilliant like roadside flares. How can a car sustain that much damage and kill a person without leaving a scratch? _It can't. Somebody dumped the body_. He wakes up screaming, throat raw, his mother looming in the door frame as she pleads for him to stop, _just stop, Zitao, I know, I know._ He looks in her eyes and sees the same resigned look he saw the morning of the funeral and he can't stop the anger from welling deep inside him, hot and furious, souring in the pit of his stomach.

How dare they.

Whoever _they_ are.

He's determined to find out, though. He'll do it alone if he has to.

✖✖✖

They move immediately after school finishes for the year, across the city and into his grandparents' flat. It was already cramped with two residents, but with four it's downright unlivable at times, especially when the hot water runs out or the kitchen fills with smoke when he attempts to make himself an evening snack. He sleeps on the pull-out couch, wakes up swimming in his sweat-drenched clothes because the building's too old for air conditioning. Regardless, he feels safer here, somehow, doesn't feel the need to look over his shoulder when he walks home. Life settles into an uneasy (if somewhat mundane) routine.

He spends days wandering the streets with his friends, stuffing themselves full of fried food and kicking around plastic coke bottles in impromptu football matches that never last longer than a block before they're distracted by a storefront or a particularly tempting smell wafting from a food cart. He even stops by his old martial arts studio one afternoon to say hello to Sifu Luo and thank him for sending over some old photographs—eight-year-old Zitao holding horse stance, twelve-year-old Zitao beaming proudly after he'd mastered a particularly tricky move with the _gun_. He hadn't been back in years, but something about his father's death made him nostalgic for the sweaty smell of gym mats, the afternoons spent after school running drills, the weekend competitions. His father used to stop by after he'd finished his beat to watch the back half of class, nodding in approval every time Zitao managed a clean execution of a punch he'd been struggling with the week before. They'd walk home together afterwards in the settling twilight, Zitao swinging his school bag over his shoulder and chattering about the day.

He'd stopped shortly after the last picture was taken, maybe a year, tops—no time anymore, no desire. No motivation. His father had been extremely disappointed, but Zitao had shrugged it off every time he brought it up. _Let me make my own choices,_ he'd insisted, pig-headed as always. His father had backed off. Looking at the calluses on Sifu Luo's hands and then back at his own soft palms, Zitao kind of wishes his father hadn't relented. Yet another thing he'd taken for granted.

He's made little progress on his father's case. He carries around dog-eared copies of the police report, makes notes in the margins on inconsistencies in stories: he finished work at eight—no, ten—he was investigating a robbery—he'd closed that case, he was following up on an interview with a witness across town instead. Nobody seems able to give him a straight answer.

The timeline becomes murkier still when one day, he makes an attempt to help his mother by sorting through the boxes of his father's things she still can't bring herself to touch. The banker's box is stuffed to the brim with receipts for things like coffee and takeout — nothing out of the ordinary for an investigator that spent more time watching suspects from the dark cocoon of his beat-up sedan than eating home-cooked meals across the table from his sullen teenage son. He almost misses the notebook in his haste to clear the contents of the box and move onto the next. It's small, inconspicuous with its black leather cord wound tightly and knotted twice. He looks down at his shoes, then back at the notebook and smiles a little. He'd only ever learned one knot from his father, and it seems there's a very good reason for that.

The notebook's filled with pages of his father's tiny, meticulous handwriting, an entire book filled with nonsense, strings of characters and numbers that seem to mean something, but he holds it upside down and squints and still can't decipher it. Occasionally he'll catch a repeated sequence, but without any context he's hopelessly lost. Of one thing he's mostly certain: his father had been keeping notes on something—something important enough to keep it completely encoded, on the off-chance it fell into the wrong hands. Zitao wonders if he's the right hands. He makes a mental note to talk to Tsang about it and pockets it.

He does not tell his mother.

 

He spends the rest of the summer trying to make sense of the notes left behind but the progress is maddeningly slow. Everything's written in some peculiar shorthand, encoded so heavily that come August he's still not quite sure if he's reading the dates at the top of the pages correctly, or if they're even dates at all.

He finally gets around to visiting Tsang at the precinct. Their greetings are stuffy and awkward, rife with unresolved tension from the last time they'd spoken. He seems taken aback when Zitao pushes the little book onto his desk and flips it open to a page at random.

"Zitao. What is this?" he asks, his voice lilting with curiosity. Zitao lets him prise it out from under his grip and leaf through it, watching the sheen of the fluorescent light illuminate the globe of Tsang's bald scalp as he shakes his head.

"I found it in Dad's things," he says. He flips to the page that's been fascinating him the most and runs his fingers around the outline of the rat doodled at the corner, an idle sketch on a stakeout, perhaps. _Cigarettes,_ it reads, one of the few complete words contained in the entire book. He didn't smoke. "Why would he need to take notes in code? What was he working on?"

Tsang eyes him carefully. "He didn't tell you?"

"Why would he?" Zitao frowns. "He never talked about work when he was at home. Mom wouldn't allow it. She said the minute he came in the door it was time to be a family and he wasn't supposed to bring any of the bad parts of his work home with him. You remember."

Tsang nods. He'd been present for the dinners when a ringing phone pulled his father into the kitchen, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. Always the same thing: _"Think I need to take a walk. Mind joining me?"_ which left Zitao and his mother to wrap plates of food in aluminum foil and towels to keep warm until they returned.

"Was there something big? You—you were his partner. He'd tell you," Zitao says, fighting the urge to sit on the floor and cry. He's really been trying to be the adult everyone expected him to become the minute his father died, so he sets his jaw into what he hopes is a confident expression and waits.

He's not sure how to read Tsang's expression—it's almost bemused, eyes kind despite the severe slant of his mouth. The office is chaotic as always with the bustling of bodies and paperwork, familiar faces of people he knows he's met before peering at him as they meander by, trying to conceal their curiosity with eyes buried into files. The unwarranted interest radiates from them regardless, and Zitao finds he's annoyed. Not one of these people has stopped by to say hello or to inquire about his mother's welfare. Not a single lousy soul.

Tsang's voice brings him out of his thoughts. "Let me keep this. I'll pass it along, maybe forensics can make sense of it."

Zitao cradles the notebook protectively against his chest. It hasn't left his sight since he found it, always tucked in a pocket or safely under his pillow. It feels weird and childish to say out loud but he feels like it's the closest thing he has left of his father. Every time he runs his fingers across the page and feels the indentations from the pressure of the ballpoint pen it reassures him: the answer's here, somewhere. His father's showing him which way to go.

Tsang notices his reluctance and chuckles. "Okay, okay. How about a copy, then? Can I borrow it long enough for that?"

It takes nearly twenty minutes to photocopy the notebook in its entirety but Zitao feels better when it's back in his pocket and Tsang's clipping the stack of papers together with a large butterfly clip.

"I'll give you a call if they come up with anything, Zitao," he says, eyes crinkling at the corners. "By the way, where are you living these days? I stopped by the house—"

"We're with my grandparents now."

Tsang's head inclines with understanding. "I wondered. I'll have to stop by soon. See how your mother's doing."

Zitao bows past ninety degrees, sight lingering on his knotted shoelaces as he murmurs, "She'd like that," practically into his kneecaps.

Zitao's almost out the door when Tsang's voice calls out to him.

"Zitao!"

He turns. "Hm?"

"Be careful."

The seriousness in his eyes haunts Zitao the entire walk home.

✖✖✖

True to his word, Detective Tsang stops by the apartment a week or so later. He spends a long time sitting with Zitao's mother, speaking in hushed voices over the kitchen table while Zitao sits next to the open window and wiggles his fingers against the humidity in the air outside. He barely catches snippets of the conversation but it sounds like the usual condolences: _a good man, so sorry for your loss, please let me know if there's anything I can do, etcetera._ Zitao wonders if there's a script out there somewhere, an accepted protocol for the proper things to say to the bereaved.

When his mother excuses herself to take a nap, Zitao shows Tsang to the door and holds it open while the older man hesitates in the threshold. Finally, he seems to come to a decision and gestures for Zitao to follow him out into the hallway, a finger pressed to his lips.

"I passed your father's notebook along to forensics last week. They called in a cryptographer." Zitao nods, eyebrows raised expectantly. Tsang shakes his head. "I wish I could say she's had any luck, but there aren't any consistent threads from one page to the next. Every page seems to be written using a different code."

Despite the frustrating news, Zitao snorts in amusement. It sounds just like his father to take being thorough to the extreme. "Why would he do that?"

"I have to ask—I know your father didn't really discuss work at home, but have you heard anything about the Scorpion Cartel?"

Zitao frowns, trying to recall. The name sounds vaguely familiar, perhaps something he's read in a newspaper. "Triads?"

"A splinter cell. Consists of members of the Wu family, maybe a few outsiders. Incredibly violent, responsible for the deaths of at least fifteen people since they appeared on the radar a decade ago." Tsang licks his lips nervously. "Those are just the ones we _know_ about. In reality, the body count is probably five times that. They're very good at what they do."

"What does that have to do with my father?" Zitao clutches at Tsang's shoulder. "Did they kill him?"

"I have no proof, Zitao. Only a few words the cryptographer's managed to crack have me thinking." He shrugs. "It might be nothing at all."

"Which ones? Which page?" He's got the entire notebook memorized by heart at this point. These days, he carries it around in his pocket out of comfort more than anything else. He pulls it out now, though, his hand poised and ready to flip to the place in question.

"I don't have it with me, Zitao," Tsang chides crossly. "I'm not supposed to be discussing this with you at all. As far as the department's concerned, this was strictly a personal visit."

"What do you remember, then?" Zitao persists. "Was my father working on a case that involved the Scorpion Cartel? Did they do this?"

Tsang sighs, voice heavy with reluctance when he finally speaks. "Not directly. They're excellent delegators. It's been difficult to attach their name to any of the high profile crimes we've suspected them of committing."

"Then?" Zitao prompts.

Tsang rubs the back of his neck and looks at the floor. "I don't know, Zitao. I don't want to give you false hope."

"You're _not_. I have to know everything that you've got so far, though. Please."

"I'll tell you this." Tsang leans in, eyes darting towards the open apartment door as he lowers his voice to a whisper. "We're currently looking for his son. Yifan, born in 1990. He was rumored to be attending a boarding school in Canada, and now he's dropped off the map. We're concerned he's being groomed to take over his father's empire. The old man can't hold onto the reins all by himself forever, not with the high-risk lifestyle he chooses to embrace."

"A _kid_ killed my dad?" Zitao scoffs in disbelief. "No way."

"Scorpions are contract killers." Tsang rocks back on his heels. "I wouldn't put it past them to send a kid to do their dirty work. They're cold, Zitao. Ruthless. I'm telling you this in the hopes that you'll back off—we can handle this. If the Scorpions _are_ involved, you could run to the ends of the earth and you still wouldn't be safe. Your dad would never forgive me if I didn't look after you and your mother, so I'm asking you once: let us do our job."

Zitao's scared now. He manages to nod and squeak a noise of agreement. Tsang's eyes soften. Zitao feels a little ashamed. He's trying so hard to be brave.

"It'll be okay." Tsang ruffles Zitao's hair affectionately. Zitao feels very small all of a sudden, like he's eight years old all over again. "You'll come to me right away if you see anything suspicious?"

"If you'll keep me updated on the notebook."

"I think I can manage that." The space between them in the hallway grows wide as Tsang retreats. "Leave it to me. You worry about keeping out of trouble and being good to your mother. I'll make sure we get to the bottom of this."

✖✖✖

The letter arrives in a plain brown envelope two weeks before he's due to begin school. Zitao is flabbergasted when the letter is addressed to him: he knows they haven't changed their address yet, just another one of those small things that Dad had always taken care of. Without him around anymore, it's the mundane trivialities that drive home the profound sense of loss; that hurt the most.

 _Strange,_ he thinks, turning the heavy envelope between his fingertips. There's no return address, just his name scrawled in hasty, spluttering ink. Huang Zitao. His grandparents' address. He squints a little at the stamp at the right-hand side, confused by the unfamiliar lettering.

He's even more confused when he opens it and it's an acceptance to Akademie SM, some private boarding school in the Czech Republic he's never even _heard_ of until he does a cursory internet search and discovers it's produced more presidents and CEOs of more Global 500 companies than any other single institution in the world, not to mention the career politicians, the scientists, the economists. Most acceptances are legacies, sons of business magnates and upper-level diplomats, eager to be groomed for the inevitable day when they would assume their fathers' positions, _uphold the family traditions_. He scrolls through the Wikipedia list of alumni, mouth agape in wonder. Every major Asian and European company boasts an SM alum. _This must be a mistake._ He looks back at the envelope. But there's his name, clear as day. His address.

"Zitao, what have you done?" his mother asks crossly when he brings her the letter and a pamphlet he's printed off the computer. "What was wrong with your old school?"

"I didn't do anything, I swear," he says with wide eyes. "I've never heard of this place."

"I'll give them a call. We'll get this sorted out," his grandfather says, rescuing the paper from the kitchen table. "Maybe it's a scam."

"Or a mistake," his grandmother adds kindly, comforting hands clasping around his shoulders. He appreciates the gesture. He's a lot taller than he used to be (towers over the small woman, in fact) and he bends his knees slightly so it's easier for her to reach.

As baffling as it is, it's not a mistake. Zitao's grandfather is on the phone with the headmaster for a solid hour, a barrage of questions at the ready. It sounds like there's a patient answer to every one as Zitao sits in the other room on the floor, legs crossed, head leaning tiredly against the doorframe. He plays with the envelope, runs his palm along where his name is written and listens, twists it over and over between two fingers until the receiver rattles gently against the cradle as his grandfather hangs up and clears his throat.

The apartment is silent. He hears the long, airy sigh of his mother, the creak of his grandmother's chair as she rises to put the kettle on. Outside, children are playing in the street, their shrieks of laughter muffled by the roar of passing traffic.

"Well," his grandfather says after a moment. "It looks like we'll need to get Zitao a passport."

 

It proves to be more complicated than just a passport—there are visas and transfer paperwork, transcripts to be requested from his old high school, not to mention the mountain of forms he and his mother have to sign before he's able to leave the country and (he still can't believe it) start attending SM. Classes have already started by the time he's packed and ready to go. He'll be starting as a second year and he groans miserably when he realizes that it's a five year program, designed to cover college curriculum during the final two in a streamlined effort to bypass traditional four-year universities and jumpstart the students' admission into MBA programs or further graduate study at places like the London School of Economics. His grandfather rattles off the impressive statistics of where recent students have chosen to continue their education and Zitao feels so drained he has to put his head in his hands before his grandfather's finished speaking.

Zitao hadn't even been thinking about _university_ , much less anything that came after that. When he stops to contemplate what's happening to him he feels overwhelmed, his head spinning dizzily when he remembers the conversation he'd had with his grandfather after the phone call, after his mother had gone to bed with a headache and his grandmother had stepped out of the kitchen to give them some privacy.

 

_"Someone sent in the application on your behalf."_

_"Someone? Dad?"_

_"Unlikely."_

_"Why? I can't go, anyway. We can't afford that type of expense, not with Dad—"_

_"That's how I know it wasn't your father."_

 

They've always been fairly well-off, but they're not _that_ wealthy, and Zitao doesn't know a single person capable of paying four years of private school tuition with one personal check. It doesn't make sense.

He struggles to say goodbye to his friends, takes loads of selcas with them and promises to write every single day. Listening to them chatter excitedly about the upcoming year makes him ache. He's grown up with these people. He'd thought he'd be graduating with them as well. Saying goodbye to his family is even harder—he wonders, briefly, as he packs his suitcase and looks around the apartment, if he's making the right decision.

"You should go," his mother says, watching him from the doorway. "This will be good for you, Zitao. An excellent opportunity."

She's been reading the Wikipedia page. It's taken a long time to get her on board, longer than his grandparents who saw _Akademie SM_ and saw future, saw potential. They expect great things from him and he feels like he'll never meet their expectations but with the trepidation comes something else, fiery and hot—the desire to _try_. His mother, on the other hand... her reluctance to let go of the last member of the immediate family lingered well until his paperwork had been processed, his visa issued. Even now it's tentative, almost feels forced when he looks in her eyes and sees the melancholy.

He worries. "Are you sure—"

"Your father would be disappointed with me if I kept you from this," she says simply. It's not what she wants and he knows it, but it's what's best. He tries to comfort himself with the knowledge that she won't be alone, that she'll be with her parents, but it's difficult when he's already feeling homesick and he hasn't even left yet.

He packs light: a few sets of clothing, his newly-purchased uniforms. He slips some photographs into a backpack along with a few books, an entire manuscript's worth of paperwork, and a prepaid calling card he'd also been given. _For emergencies._ He's not sure what kind of emergencies he might run into but he's hoping he won't have to use it.

He tucks his father's notebook amongst his belongings and takes a last look around at his makeshift bedroom. _If nothing else, it'll be nice to sleep in a real bed again,_ he thinks.

"Are you ready?" his mother asks, voice soft with tears she's desperately fighting. "We've got to get going to the airport, Zitao."

He feels his own eyes sting and blinks hard. He refuses to cry. His father never would have allowed it, not in front of his mother. When his voice comes it's hoarse, the words tiptoeing past the lump in his throat. "Yes. I'm coming."

 

The flight takes nearly eleven hours, which is bad enough on its own, but since it's his first time on an airplane it's absolutely _agonizing_. His iPod dies somewhere over Russia and he curses himself for not checking the battery the night before as he winds up his headphones and shoves it in the front pocket of his backpack. He finishes both books he brought with him and spends most of his time staring out the window and fending off the dozy head of the passenger sitting next to him. 

When he arrives, he's so petrified at the realization that he's in a foreign country halfway across the globe and away from his family that he nearly turns on his heel and begs to get back on the plane. There are people everywhere, none of them speaking a language he even _begins_ to grasp. He tries to find common ground with English, though, to varying degrees of success. In his search for a taxi he pulls out his map and approaches a sweaty, tired looking cab driver who spits on the ground and stares at him blankly when he says, "English? I need a ride to my school." The next three drivers react similarly—one shakes his head and says, "No—too far," and takes him into the city instead, but that's not an encouraging step in the right direction and he's not confident enough with his travel book of phrases he'd purchased at the airport bookstore to attempt any form of public transportation. With his luck, he'd end up somewhere in Germany and he'd be even _later_ for his first day of school.

Besides, they're expecting him tonight.

He debates the merits of hitch-hiking the hundred-odd kilometers outside of Prague into the Czech countryside, calculates the likelihood of being picked up by a serial killer until he's _finally_ offered a lift by an old man in Charles Square. He leads Zitao across the bridge and to the outskirts of town where a rusting old truck is parked and waiting, one taillight smashed, the wires hanging uselessly against the bumper.

Communication proves to be difficult, limited mostly to hand signals and the man's broken English, but Zitao points at the school on the map and holds out his wallet and it's settled. The floor is littered with straw and the truck's bearings rattle like a loose box of screws every time they go over a bump which happens frequently enough that Zitao starts worrying that his teeth will be knocked loose if he doesn't hold his face, so he does exactly that.

The man smells like sweet tobacco and he steals glances over at Zitao when he thinks he's not looking. "Akademie?" he says finally. "You a smart kid." The wind whips against the open windows, the brusque September chill snapping at his cheeks, the smell of wood smoke curling around them as they hurtle along. The truck accelerates.

He nods graciously although he doesn't feel smart at the moment, not when he can't even tell if they're heading in the right direction. His fretting turns out to be for naught, however, when they round a corner at a breakneck speed and turn onto an unpaved road lined with trees.

"Here," the man says, flicking on his headlights to combat the settling twilight. "Akademie."

"Where?" Zitao leans forward, elbows on the dashboard as he cranes his neck for a better view. All he sees are trees, and then—

There it is, like something out of a storybook. His breath catches in his throat and his eyes are stinging again with unbidden emotion at how _beautiful_ his new school is as it rises out of the forest, the outline of the brick and stone building becoming less blurred, more definite as they approach. It's real.

" _Wow,_ " he breathes. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Is beautiful," the man agrees in his clipped speech. He flings a hand across Zitao's face, nearly winging him in the nose as he points across the field. "I drop you there?"

"Yes," Zitao says gratefully. He slips him an extra bank note as the man brings his luggage around to the cobblestone walkway in front of the school and the man breaks into a wide grin. _Shit. How much did I just give him?_ he wonders but it's too late; the truck's engine restarts with a tiger's growl and roars back down the long stony drive into the night.

He's here. After everything, he's finally made it.

Zitao swallows heavily and turns to look up. Being up close to the school makes it seem ominous, somehow. He's not an expert on architecture, especially European architecture, but the building's _old_ , over a hundred years at least, judging from the way the ivy creeps up the stone wall like it's always been there. Lights dot the windows, curtains glowing yellow against lamps from within. Signs of life. Signs of his peers.

He's scared to meet them but he knows he can't put it off forever. The door is heavy under his hands and he pushes it for a moment before he realizes he's supposed to be pulling it instead and yanks it open, embarrassed. He hasn't bothered to set his watch for the local time but he does some quick math in his head and it's late. Past dinner. Everyone's probably settling in for the evening to finish homework and go to bed. He'd significantly underestimated the difficulty in finding transportation to the school and hopes there's still someone in the main office that can process his paperwork and find him a room to sleep in.

His worrying is interrupted by another person's presence. There's a bright-eyed boy waiting for him in the main foyer just past the entrance, his chin in one hand, a book in the other. He looks up as Zitao struggles to slip through the doors with his suitcase under one arm and his backpack swinging awkwardly from the crook of his elbow. He nearly makes it in time to help and Zitao feels hot pangs of embarrassment as he drops the suitcase on the boy's feet. The sound echoes awkwardly in the barren chamber and the boy gives him a sympathetic smile despite the assault.

"Sorry, I wasn't quite fast enough." He bends over to pick up the suitcase and Zitao thinks _wow, he's tall_ for the first time since he hit puberty. He's unaccustomed to being shorter than anyone, but there's a first time for everything and he knows this entire adventure puts him into uncharted territory. Zitao lets his eyes travel upwards, studying his companion with subdued interest. He's got shaggy, fawn-colored hair, the telltale black roots peeking through the hairband pushing it out of his dark brown eyes. He's in the school's uniform—sort of, anyway. His shirt is rolled up to the elbows, necktie pulled loose. There's no sign of either a jacket or a vest. Zitao wonders if this is acceptable or if the boy's able to get away with it because the faculty aren't around.

"Did you have a safe trip?" the boy asks. "We were starting to get worried you were lost out there."

His English is lightyears ahead of Zitao's. Zitao smiles politely and shakes his head. "It was okay. I'm sorry I'm late." He shoulders his bag and tries to reclaim his suitcase but the boy shakes his head and holds it out of reach.

"Not a problem, Zitao. It's good you're safe. You must be tired — the headmaster instructed me to take you to your room and to let you know that you can go visit the office tomorrow to deal with your transfer papers."

Zitao nods. The distance and weight of today's journey hits him like a sledgehammer and he isn't sure if he'll have the energy to meet his roommate or even bother to wash up before he sleeps.

"I'm Kris, by the way," he tosses over his shoulder, leading Zitao down a corridor and up a narrow flight of stairs that winds up several floors before opening onto a long, hallway of closed doors, each one decorated by a pair of names. The dormitory. "I'm a prefect here."

"Prefect?"

"Kind of like a class president, but with fewer classroom duties. It's mostly dormitory stuff—you have a problem, anything at all, just come to me. We're kind of like big brothers for you guys." He points at three rooms along the way that only have one name apiece. "Here's my room. This is Lu Han's room, and that's Minseok's," he says, "although you're more likely to find him in the library than in his room. Something to keep in mind for the future."

Zitao files this information away as Kris stops in front of the last door before the hallway veers off to the right, presumably to another set of rooms. The door already has two names on the placard: Byun Baekhyun, Park Chanyeol.

"Here we are," Kris intones, rapping briskly with two knuckles before he jiggles the handle. "Hello?"

"Kris? Come in." A deep voice resonates through the door as Kris pushes it open and peers around the edge.

"Hey guys. Sorry to bother you, but he's here."

"Who's here?" The voice sounds confused. "I don't—"

A second voice cuts in. "Finally! I was beginning to think you were just messing with me." A cheerful face appears at the gap, hair obscured by a towel until the boy pulls it away to reveal a mess of sandy brown hair. His chest is bare and still damp from a recent shower.

"You're shameless." Kris snorts. "Greeting your new roommate half-naked? Is this how the Byun family practices hospitality?"

"I always like to give a good first impression," the boy shoots back, stepping aside to pull the door wide. "Come in. It's cold out there."

"Zitao, this is Baekhyun." Kris sets Zitao's suitcase just inside the door. "And over there is Chanyeol. Chanyeol. This is Zitao."

The owner of the deep voice swivels in his desk chair to regard Zitao with a pair of large, coffee-colored eyes. "New roommate? I—"

"It's okay," Baekhyun says breezily, abandoning the wet towel at the foot of his bed. "Kris and I already talked about it. I agreed since we've got the biggest room in the hall. Seems only fair we take him."

"Were you going to involve me in this discussion at any point?" Chanyeol runs a hand through his black, close-cropped hair. Zitao does not miss the unfriendly tone.

Kris senses the tension in the room and offers, "If you're worried about your detail, the PSS already reviewed his file and he's been cleared—"

"I wasn't, actually. I was worried about my space. My privacy. Where the fuck is he supposed to go?" Chanyeol stands. The chair creaks underneath him, underscoring his protest with a loud, indignant squawk. "Why are we getting a new student two weeks into the term, anyway?"

"Chanyeol," Kris says quietly. There's a buttery smoothness to his voice that wasn't there before and it reels Chanyeol back into his seat, sullen but compliant. Zitao looks between them and sees a warning flicker in Kris's eyes. Chanyeol's defiant expression subdues.

"Fine." He turns back to the open book on his desk. "As long he stays out of the way."

"Hey. It's his room, now, too." Baekhyun tugs a wrinkled, heather-grey t-shirt over his head, voice muffled by the fabric as he admonishes, "You're not being the magnanimous son of the President right now, by the way. You're being Park Chanyeol, executive douche of the unwelcoming committee."

"That's not a thing," Chanyeol mutters into his homework. Baekhyun redirects his attention to Zitao again. His smile is very bright and very wide, lips curled upwards against a mouthful of straight, white teeth.

"It's okay, Zitao. Ignore him. We all do." He winks mischievously. "I cleared out a drawer for you."

Kris claps a hand on Zitao's shoulder for a moment and he flashes back to his kitchen: his grandmother, the gentle whistle of a boiling kettle. _I want to go home,_ he thinks, followed rapidly by, _but this is home now_ and the anxiety laces tightly up his chest. By the time he's able to shake himself out of it, Kris is halfway through saying something.

"—in the morning. You know where my room is if you need anything. Come by anytime, day or night."

Zitao nods absently. He barely gets out, "Thank you. Goodnight," before the door's closed behind him and he's alone with Baekhyun and Chanyeol, who's still hunched over his desk and refusing to turn around.

"Is this all you have for now?" Baekhyun breaks the silence cheerfully, pointing at his suitcase. "How much more is coming?"

"Coming?" Zitao asks.

"More—belongings?" Baekhyun speaks slowly, enunciating each word. He mimes along with what he's saying—arms spread wide on _more_ , hands flailing erratically in the direction of Zitao's luggage on _belongings._

Zitao resists the urge to roll his eyes. He's not an idiot and doesn't particularly appreciate being treated like one. "This is it. Nothing else."

Across the room, Chanyeol's shoulders draw up to his ears. His body language radiates irritation, all sharp angles and slow, deliberate movements. "So where's he going to sleep, Baekhyun?" He still doesn't face either of them.

"The futon," Baekhyun replies easily. "We've done this before. Remember, when the pipe in the bathroom burst? Jongdae and Kyungsoo's room flooded—"

This finally provokes Chanyeol into joining the conversation properly. He clubs his elbow hard against the corner of the desk when he twists around. His face contorts in pain as he rubs the offended joint. "He's paying _how much_ a year—"

"It's not permanent. You're okay with this for now, right? Just until they bring a bed in?"

Zitao feels bewildered, the jetlag heavy and sore behind his eyeballs. Everything hurts. Thinking in a different language is not helping the situation. "I—yes?" He realizes, belatedly, what he's agreed to. The futon's crammed behind the door next to the other desk, piled high with textbooks and abandoned piles of laundry that have yet to find a home in the dresser. He can't imagine how they're going to fit another bed in this room. He adds it to the list of things to worry about after he's gotten some sleep and hopes he remembers this conversation in the morning.

"They're _seriously_ planning on—"

"Shut _up_ , Chanyeol." Impatience starts edging into Baekhyun's cheerful tone. "That's enough. It's done." He glances back over at Zitao. "You look dead on your feet. Why don't you wash up and get some sleep?"'

Zitao agrees with the assessment. Baekhyun gives him an abbreviated tour of the communal bathrooms, warns him of the dangers of trying to take a shower ten minutes before class ("Because that's when _everyone's_ trying to take one," he explains) and Zitao's finally, _finally_ crawling into bed after washing his face and running a toothbrush across his teeth. He'll bother with a proper clean-up in the morning. Chanyeol refuses to turn off the lamp despite Baekhyun's pleas but Zitao can't work it up to care, just rolls over to block out the worst of the light. He's so fucking tired at this point that he's pretty sure he could sleep through a full-scale invasion and not even stir for gunfire.

He pulls the covers up to his chin—a thin blanket scavenged from underneath Baekhyun's bed, because he hadn't thought to bring his own bedding—and his eyelids are already sinking when he realizes he hasn't even called his mother to let her know he arrived safely.

 _I'll do it in the morning._ Another thing for the list.

At long last, he sleeps.

✖✖✖

When Baekhyun shakes Zitao awake the next morning, it takes a solid twenty seconds of blinking at the boy's lean face before he remembers who he is and why his mother hasn't called him for breakfast yet.

"Hmm?" He sits up, shoulders still heavy with fatigue. He can't believe it's morning already—he's pretty sure he only fell asleep twenty minutes ago, or at least that's what his entire body is trying to tell him. His muscles protest angrily when he stretches his arms over his head and leans over, first to the left, then to the right. "What?"

"Breakfast? Classes?" He straightens up and Zitao notices for the first time that Baekhyun is completely dressed. His fingers are working on straightening the knot of his tie as he speaks. "Kris told me I need to show you to the administrative office."

"What time is it?" Zitao's hand fumbles in his backpack for his watch—which proves to be no help whatsoever because it's _still_ not set to local time. He blinks again, mind too foggy to do the math in his head.

"Nearly seven." Baekhyun ruffles his hair. "Jetlag's a bitch, I know. Take a quick shower and come downstairs to the dining hall. We'll meet you there. Don't take forever."

Zitao nods. It's not until Baekhyun's left him on his own in the room that he realizes he's got no clue where the fuck the dining hall is.

He manages to find it. He follows the sound of chattering students and clinking plates down the stairs he'd taken with Kris last night, through the foyer and down a long corridor. He's ten minutes later than he thought he'd be thanks to complications with his uniform. The tie looked much easier to manage when Baekhyun was tying it. He struggles with it in the mirror for a while, noting the dark circles under his eyes with displeasure before he gives up and shoves it into his pocket. He tucks his mountain of paperwork under his arm and slips his father's notebook in the inside pocket of his blazer. He's not ready—but then again, he's not sure an extra twelve hours of sleep would make him any more prepared for this.

When he walks through the doors, the noise in the dining hall nearly deafens him. He's amazed at the sheer volume, especially this early in the morning. Baekhyun grabs him by the wrist as he walks past and yanks him down into the empty seat next to him.

"Didn't you hear me calling you? Did you get lost? Where's your tie?" He's got jam at the corner of his mouth—red, probably raspberry—and Zitao tears his eyes away from it long enough to shake his head.

"It's in my pocket," he says, deciding that answering one of the numerous rapid-fire questions was good enough for now. Certainly an improvement on the word salad of gibberish he'd offered in response to Baekhyun's queries the night before.

"Well, get it out," he instructs, cramming the rest of his toast in his mouth. "You'll get in trouble if you're not wearing it."

"I can't—"

"You don't know how to tie it?" The boy across the table leans over, hands outstretched. "Come here, let me. It's easy." His hair is coiffed neatly off his face. Zitao puts his hand up to his own hair—black, fringe long enough to hide his eyebrows, shaved at the side (his mother always hated it like that, said he looked too _tough_ )—and wishes he'd spent more than ten seconds fussing with it that morning. He knows he looks a mess. He'll try to get up earlier tomorrow.

"That's Jongdae," Baekhyun manages to say around the mouthful of half-chewed bread. "Guys, this is Zitao. New student."

Zitao hands his tie over to Jongdae and leans in to let him tie it around his neck. He manages it in less time than Zitao thinks he'll ever be able to, sliding the knot to rest against his top button before he steps back to admire his handiwork. Zitao murmurs a shy, grateful _thank you_ in Jongdae's general direction as he settles back in his chair.

"Are you a third year like Baekhyun and Jongdae?" another boy asks. He's small—smaller than Baekhyun, even—with large doe eyes that give him a startled, wary expression until he smiles and gives a little wave. "I'm Kyungsoo."

Zitao shakes his head. "Second."

"So's Kyungsoo. You guys will have classes together." Baekhyun waves his hand distractedly between the two of them like the gesture substitutes for a proper introduction. He's looking across the room at something and Zitao follows his gaze to a far table, where Chanyeol and Kris are sitting with a few other boys. "Jongdae, did Yixing leave anything—"

"Not yet. I asked him about it when I saw him in the bathroom earlier this morning," Jongdae says enigmatically. "He says give him a few hours. He was too busy working on Cermak's assignment until late last night."

"Cermak's _ridiculous_." Kyungsoo shakes his head, pushing a plate of unbuttered toast across the table at Zitao. "Is he _that_ afraid of being seen as a pushover? It's the second week of classes."

"New teachers always feel like they have something to prove." Jongdae shrugs. "Don't worry about it. He'll ease up. Remember—he's got to grade all those assignments after he collects them. It'll get old." He turns to Baekhyun, who's still staring pointedly at Chanyeol. Next to Kris, Chanyeol busies himself tearing into a croissant. He either doesn't feel the burning stare or doesn't give enough of a damn to acknowledge it. "Relax. He'll get it out to us by lunch, I'm sure. That should be plenty of time."

Baekhyun makes a noise of agreement in the back of his throat, mind clearly elsewhere. He seems to snap out of it after a moment and looks over at Zitao. "You finished? I can take you to the office now."

Zitao looks down at his plate. He's barely eaten anything. A combination of unfamiliar cuisine and exhaustion has killed his appetite. He's been picking at the toast, mostly out of habit than hunger. He slides it away. "Yes. I'm ready."

"Baekhyun, what's the hurry?" Kyungsoo puts a hand on Zitao's forearm to stop him from standing up. "He's not done. Is there something you need to do?"

"I just—need to talk to Yixing before class," he says sheepishly. "Sorry, Zitao. I didn't mean to rush you—"

"It's okay, I'm done." Zitao brandishes the thick packet. "I really should take care of this."

"Good." Baekhyun flashes him a relieved smile. "I'll walk you there. It's not far."

He leads Zitao out of the dining hall and back through the foyer he'd come into last night. The vaulted ceilings and long, winding corridors intimidate the hell out of Zitao. He struggles to keep his mental map of the building straight and debates asking for one on paper before they're in front of a large wooden door with a burnished brass placard that reads Alexandru Brodsky, Headmaster in heavy block script.

"Here's the office. Administrative offices are all down this hallway. Classes are in the next building. Go out the door past the dining hall and you can't miss it. I think that's about it? It's not too difficult to figure out where you're going. You'll get the hang out it in a few days," he assures Zitao as he walks backwards and disappears back the way they'd came. 

 

Registration isn't at all the process he expects it to be. He doesn't catch a glimpse of Brodsky, whom he'd been hoping to meet. Despite his wishes, the heavy wooden door of the inner office stays closed. The secretary is a stern-faced, diminutive Czech woman in her late sixties who barely glances at his forms before she stamps the top page and sets them aside in a pile somewhere. Zitao winces when he thinks of the countless hours spent filling them out, hands cramped and stained from a blown-out ballpoint pen. He's given a schedule and a map of campus, a kit for PE and almost as an afterthought, a key to his room.

"How are you settling in?" The secretary pulls a thin-lipped smile at him with the beleaguered patience of someone who clearly has better things to do but is trying their best to be polite. "You're rooming with Mr Park and Mr Byun, aren't you?"

"Ah. Yes. Fine," Zitao says because he's not sure what else to say. He's barely been here twelve hours, doesn't even know where he is in relation to the classroom he's supposed to be sitting in right now, and one of his roommates hasn't said a single word to him yet. He supposes things could be worse, but he's going to need more time to answer that question properly.

"We're sorry about the room situation. We honestly weren't expecting you. Housing assignments had been completed for the year when your application arrived." She shakes her head and tuts. "Headmaster insisted on your acceptance, though. Apparently you have an impressive transcript. Or impressive connections."

He leans forward violently in his chair at the mention of his application. "Yes. About that. Who sent it?"

"Who sent it?" She cocks an eyebrow. "What a strange question."

The file cabinet grates loudly as she pulls the second drawer open and skims through the folders until she pulls a thin green folder from somewhere in the middle. An awkward, uneasy silence settles on the room as she reads through the contents. Zitao swears the ticking of the wind-up clock on her desk crescendos with each passing second, every muscle tensing as she turns a page, frowns, and turns another. After an unbearably long pause, during which Zitao can't manage to do anything but hold his breath and watch her eyebrows knit together in a deep frown, she sets the folder down on the desk and shakes her head.

"That information doesn't appear to be readily available," she says slowly, voice tinged with confusion. "There's—your file is incomplete." Her eyes flicker strangely when she looks up at Zitao's face. He's sure he's sporting a similarly bewildered expression. "I'm sure the headmaster has it on his desk. You'll have to come back later and try again."

"Later," he confirms. "I'll be back. I'd like to know." He's too curious to let this rest.

He's out of the chair and halfway to the door when her grating voice stops him in his tracks. "You understand the importance of discretion, correct?"

He's taken aback. "Discretion?" Something in the way he repeats the last word of her question makes her purse her lips.

"There's—I'm not sure why the prefects recommended this particular room assignment. Please understand, Mr Huang, that we do not tolerate the exploitation of our—more..." She trails off, searching for the appropriate word before she settles on, " _notorious_ students."

"Notorious?"

" _Akademie SM_ prides itself on cultivating an environment in which students are free to learn without fear of distraction from photographers or journalists who may be looking for tabloid fodder in order to injure their reputations or the reputations of their families. Please exercise the utmost caution when discussing President Park's son with anyone. In fact, err on the side of caution. _Don't_ discuss him with anyone."

"President—" Zitao's eyes go wide with recognition. It clicks—Baekhyun's comment last night. _Magnanimous son of the President._ President Park of South Korea, elected last year by a landslide. Zitao's father had taken an unusual interest in international politics around the time of the election and had seemed enthusiastic when Park had clinched the popular vote. _He'll do good things, Zitao._ He remembers rolling his eyes—like an election in South Korea would immediately impact anything in his life—and thinks if his father were still alive, this particular turn of events would have inspired an entire soliloquy on the importance of awareness. "Chanyeol's—his son?"

"It's uncouth to insist on students signing a confidentiality agreement," the secretary continues. "Please understand, we're very serious about protecting the privacy of all parties involved. That includes you, Mr Huang—but with Mr Park, there needs to be an additional level of sensitivity. There's no need to cause an international incident. You understand?"

Despite the reasonable line of thinking behind her request, Zitao feels chastised before he's even done anything wrong. He shuts the door of the office behind him and rolls his shoulders with some annoyance. Chanyeol hasn't even spoken to him—he can't imagine it'll be too difficult to preserve his privacy if he never has an exchange with him. Besides, he's not interested in talking to reporters or being a gossip. He wants to finish his schooling and get a good job so he can take care of his mother. If he's able to find out the identity of his mysterious sponsor to thank him and repay the money at a date when he can afford the expense, then so much the better. Chanyeol? Chanyeol's just the rude son of a politician. Easy enough to ignore.

He's halfway to his first class—English, apparently, according to the schedule he's been given—when he realizes he _still_ hasn't called his mother.

 _She's going to think I'm in a ditch somewhere,_ he frets, but just then the bell rings. Startled, he sprints across the courtyard, hoping his classroom isn't too difficult to locate, and it's forgotten again.

✖✖✖

By the time he gets back to the dormitory that night it's late. He'd arrived to dinner with minutes to spare, incurring the irritated stares of the kitchen staff who'd nearly finished cleaning things up but had begrudgingly set out a small plate of some unidentified meat and cold potatoes. He'd wolfed it down anyway, his appetite back with a vengeance after a day of classes that were alternately fascinating and just slightly over his head. He twists the doorknob and is dismayed to find it's locked. When he finally locates his key in the depths of his pockets and unlocks the door, though, the lights are on. Chanyeol and Baekhyun can't be far—probably a few rooms down visiting with Jongdae or something.

He loosens his tie just enough to slip it from underneath his collar and hangs it off the arm of the futon. He's _terrified_ to untie it because he knows he'll have to ask someone for help again and he feels stupid enough as it is without having to compound his embarrassment. He'd spent the day attached to Kyungsoo's hip, asking him about _everything._ Kyungsoo indulged his barrage of questions and didn't once seem put off, but Zitao's not so sure that he wasn't just being nice to the new kid. He doesn't want to wear out his welcome so soon into the school year.

He'd learned that Cermak, the English teacher, was also new this year and had already established a reputation as an incredibly difficult instructor. He'd learned that the History teacher, Malcolm, expected you to use as many primary sources as possible and would forgive late assignments if you stayed late to talk to him about the first World War.

He'd learned that Kyungsoo was a toxophilite during their PE instruction after lunch. Zitao hadn't done much archery in school and he was impressed at Kyungsoo's sure aim, his steady hands, the way his mouth set into a firm line just before he nocked the arrow, elbow springing backward into the release. _"Dad expected me to be good at this stuff,"_ Kyungsoo had informed him, referring to his father's position as Army Chief of Staff. Kyungsoo has known Chanyeol and Baekhyun since they were in secondary school together and confided in Zitao that, _"Chanyeol's been grumpy ever since the election. He's not used to being restricted quite this severely. Don't worry about him, he'll get over it."_

_"And if he doesn't?"_

_"He never stays mad for very long. He's normally a very cheerful guy. He's just under a lot of pressure. Everyone's watching him. People—the media—they keep speculating that he'll follow in his father's footsteps and seek the Presidency. Of course, there are others who say he's not half the man his father is... it's got to be hard, is all I'm saying."_ At this, Kyungsoo hit a bullseye and reached into his quiver for another arrow. Conversation over.

 

Zitao sets his stack of books on the floor next to the futon and eases his shoes off. He's got a decent amount of homework but he can't be bothered to look at it for the moment. He just wants to shower—he feels disgusting and his nose wrinkles in disgust when he dips his head against his chest to smell himself. He nearly misses the letter sitting on his pillow. It's the same envelope as before—heavy, brown, unmarked except for his name. He opens it, unfolds the sheet of paper, and reads it a few times.

_It was your father's wish for you to receive a world-class education._

He turns over the paper. Blank. He looks back at the message and frowns. Same handwriting as before, as far as he can tell—scrawling, elegant. Obviously not the work of either Chanyeol or Baekhyun (and, considering his lukewarm reception, he doubts they'd have bothered to submit his application for the school in the first place).

 _It was your father's wish for you to receive a world-class education._ He shakes his head. There's no way his father could have anything to do with this—he's been gone for months now and he'd _never_ said anything about sending Zitao abroad before his death. Did the mysterious benefactor know his father? He mulls over the possibility of a secret will or a faked death before he decides he's been watching too many dramas. He could really use a shower before he does anything else.

The bathroom mirrors are fogged from somebody's shower when he wanders in, towel draped over his shoulder. He wipes the mirror and stares at himself, noting exhaustion's calling cards: the greyish undertone in his cheeks, the dark rings under his eyes. Judging by the laundry list of homework he's been given to complete by tomorrow, he's not going to get much sleep tonight, either.

The first shower stall is occupied but the curtain hasn't been drawn completely. Zitao doesn't realize this until it's too late and he's staring at a very naked Baekhyun. His eyes move of their own accord down the long pale line of Baekhyun's body and linger on the cock he's got grasped loosely in his fist, elbow moving in a steady pumping motion as he pushes himself into his fingers. Zitao had completely missed the tell-tale, obscene sound of wet skin on skin, drowned out by the heavy drumming of the shower against the tiled floor of the shower stall. He looks away, embarrassed.

Baekhyun gives a little groan and his eyes crack open. He doesn't seem fazed at all to see Zitao standing there. His lips part against bared teeth, nearly smiling as he says, "What? Why are you standing there? You want in?"

"N—no, I—sorry," he says awkwardly, stepping into the second shower stall and pulling the curtain closed.

"You're still dressed. You shower with your clothes on?" Baekhyun asks. He whimpers and Zitao closes his eyes, trying to stop himself from thinking about it. His traitorous dick stirs slightly in his pants.

"No. I just. No."

"Don't be shy, you— _ah._ " A low, guttural moan floats past the curtain when Baekhyun comes and Zitao has to forcibly put his hand on his erection to stop it from seeking out the source of the sound.

Silence. The shower turns off. A moment later Baekhyun's sticking his face through the curtain to stare owlishly at him. Zitao can't figure out if it's worse for Baekhyun to see the tent in his pants or to see him holding it down. His brain stalls out, unable to come to a decision.

Baekhyun squints against the water trickling down his face. "You okay?"

"I—yeah," Zitao mutters, turning around to tug his shirt over his head.

"Hey. Look, it's fine." Baekhyun chuckles. "I knew you were there. Don't be shy next time, you can come in if you want. It's not a big deal."

Zitao isn't sure how to respond to this, either. Public school has left him woefully unprepared. He's always _known_ he's preferred kissing boys but it hasn't been at the front of his mind in months, not since his father died and he lost all desire to spend time with anyone, romantically or otherwise. And this—this is a lot more than just chaste pecks on the mouth underneath the streetlight outside the comic book store. He's not sure he's ready to skip holding hands and go straight to holding dicks.

"Well. Anyway. Offer stands. I'll see you back in the room?" Baekhyun retreats, leaving Zitao to shiver despite the humidity of the bathroom.

He showers until the water runs in cold rivulets down his back, tugging at himself with enough urgency that it almost hurts to come. Afterwards, he turns off the water and leans his head against the wall, shoulders heaving with the exertion. He's nervous to go back in the room, worried that Baekhyun will take one look at his face and know everything that's running through his mind.

When he can't avoid it any longer, he returns to the room. He's relieved to see that Baekhyun's hunched over his desk reading a textbook, a large pair of headphones clamped securely over his ears. He doesn't notice when Zitao pulls on a pair of sweatpants and crawls under the covers, hands pressed over his cheeks to hide the blush creeping into them as he replays Baekhyun's moans over and over in his head. He reads under there for a while by the light of a tiny LED flashlight until his eyes hurt and he gives up for the evening. The rest can wait. It'll have to, at least until he gets into something resembling a proper sleep schedule.

 

He must fall asleep at some point shortly after that because when he wakes up to the sound of a door creaking shut, the room is dark. The English textbook slides off his chest and falls on the floor when he sits up to look around. Nothing's out of place. Baekhyun's slumped face-first into his pillow; Chanyeol's sprawled across the covers with his arm flung over the edge of the bed. He whispers their names but the sound hangs in the quiet room for a moment before dissipating, unanswered. 

_Probably someone down the hall going to the bathroom,_ he rationalizes, burying his face back into the covers.

Still, it takes longer to fall asleep this time.


	2. Chapter 2

He's summoned to the office during breakfast the next day.

His mother's voice sounds thin through the heavy bakelite receiver, but so close, almost like she's in the next room instead of thousands of kilometers away. "I'm glad to hear you arrived safely," she says and he can hear his grandmother in the background complaining loudly that he hadn't called earlier.

"I'm sorry I haven't called, it's been—" He doesn't have a word to finish the sentence, so he doesn't. "I'm sorry."

"Do you like it? You don't want to come home, do you?" She sounds hopeful. He wants to say yes.

"I do like it," he says, and at least that much is true. "It's very nice here. It's in the countryside. I've never seen so much green in one place."

"Working hard in your classes? Making friends?" His grandfather's voice from somewhere in the house, now, calling to his mother: _Has he met anyone famous?_ She ignores it and presses on. "Are you eating well?"

"Classes are interesting," he hedges, not wanting to admit that there are times when he stares up at the chalkboard and doesn't have a clue what's going on. "Everyone's been very nice." Also mostly true. "I miss your cooking." Completely true.

"Oh, Taozi," she says hoarsely. "This is very difficult."

He aches to reach out and cling to her midsection, remembering the heavy dread from a childhood nightmare and the warm, soft body that reached out to soothe him. He hasn't hugged her like that in years—not since he'd turned thirteen and eschewed any sort of physical affection that made him feel like a child again. He regrets that, now; wants another chance at it. "I know," is as close as he manages to telling her this.

"You'll call again soon? I don't like going so long without hearing from you."

"I will," he promises. "I will call."

The secretary's watching him, watery blue eyes piercing and unsympathetic when she takes the phone back from his limp hand and sets it back on the receiver. "Students aren't supposed to make phone calls," she remarks, eyes already buried in her filing work again. "You won't be able to contact her again unless there's an emergency."

"She's—not used to being alone," Zitao says quietly. "I'm sorry. My dad—"

"We know." The frown lines around her mouth relax into an expression that almost looks like concern. "Our condolences, Mr Huang, but rules—"

"It's okay." He shrugs fiercely. "I understand."

He's halfway out the door before he remembers his paperwork. The speed at which he wheels around to face her sends a stack of papers fluttering out of her hands and across the old desk.

"Yes, Mr Huang? Was there something else?" She pastes the scowl back on when he hands her the last of the papers she'd dropped. "We're sorry about the bed situation, we're having to locate one—"

"Not a problem, the futon's fine," he says dismissively, regretting it as soon as he's said it (it's not fine—his back's killing him). "You were going to look into my admission record. Did you ever find it?"

"I spoke to Headmaster Brodsky. He informed me that students' records are confidential and cannot be shared with anyone, under any circumstances."

Zitao tips his head quizzically. "But—it's _my_ record. Why can't I see it?"

"Mr Huang, if there's nothing more I can help you with, I've got things to attend to." There's a pair of glasses hanging around her neck by a gold chain and she slips them on her nose to punctuate her sentence. "I'll be sure to let the housekeeper know that they won't need to continue their search for a spare bed."

_Fuck,_ Zitao thinks. "I—"

The warning bell rings.

"You'll be late," she warns. "It won't look good to earn demerits so early in your tenure here."

As soon as the door shuts behind him, he leans back against the wall, head hitting the smooth cobbled stone of the wall with a quiet _thunk._ He sniffs a few times and scrubs at his eyes with the inside of his wrist. His chest is laced tight with concern and he wonders what he's doing here, so far from home, from his mother and his grandparents. The things he's supposed to protect.

Kris is waiting awkwardly around the corner when Zitao finally calms down enough to emerge from the administrative hallway. His shirt's unbuttoned at the neck and his jacket's in desperate need of ironing. Weariness pulls at his face when he holds out a tissue and his hands tremble a little when he pushes it into Zitao's startled fingers.

"Here. Stop crying."

Mortification flushes Zitao's face a deep pink. "Oh—I'm—allergies." He points at his eyes, circles them with an exaggerated flourish of his index finger to sell his fib. "I'm not used to being in the countryside."

"Just take it." Kris shakes it, the tissue fluttering like a white flag between his fingers. "Everybody gets homesick here from time to time. There's no shame." He pats Zitao's shoulder. "You get used to it. I grew up in a big city. I get it. It's really different here. Quiet, too. When I first got here, I couldn't sleep. I just lay awake listening to the crickets and the wind and thought, _Shit, I'll never get used to this._ But I did. It just took some time."

Zitao nods.

"Quiet's nice," Kris continues, the corner of his mouth lifting in an odd smile. "It can be a good thing if it's a peaceful quiet."

"I like the quiet," Zitao says hastily. "It's beautiful here."

"Quiet can be bad, too." Kris inclines thoughtfully, more like he's talking to the wall than to Zitao. "If it's being used to cover things up." He redirects his attention to Zitao. "Don't worry about making some noise. If it's necessary, nobody's going to mind too much." His eyes catch on the tangled mess around Zitao's neck and he chuckles. "Still haven't gotten the hang of this?" He pulls it loose. "Didn't your father ever teach you how to tie one of these?"

Zitao shrugs, trying to ignore the metallic nausea that settles under his tongue. "He didn't really get a chance to before he died."

Kris's hands pause in the middle of the Windsor knot he's tying. His eyes close, heavy with regret as he says, "Shit. I'm so sorry. I forgot."

Surprise contorts Zitao's mouth into a hanging gape. He hasn't discussed his father with _anyone_ yet—it's never felt like the right time to admit that he's not a pet son, he's not _anything_ , really. He's going to be responsible for his family's future like everyone else at this school, but in a more immediate way: food, shelter, safety. The necessities. No multi-billion-dollar international corporations, no offices to run for. Just his mother and his grandparents and the little apartment with the living room window that sticks in the summer. "I—how did you know?"

"I was in the office when your paperwork was being processed. I overheard…" he trails off. "I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have said anything." He shakes his head. "After being at this school for this long, you'd think I'd know better than to make assumptions about families."

"It's alright," Zitao insists. "You didn't know. How could you—I haven't told anyone."

"Still." Kris smooths a crease out of the shoulder of Zitao's blazer and steps back to survey him. "I'm sorry." He pulls at Zitao's tie once more just to check and offers him a warm smile, eyes twinkling through the blonde shag of his bangs. "There. Much better."

"Thank you. I'm not sure what I'll do next time," Zitao says, tugging on it a little himself. "I wasn't expecting the tie to be the hardest part of going to this school."

Kris laughs softly, the sound petering out between them. "Get one of your roommates to show you how to do it properly. They've both had a lot of practice."

Zitao bites his lip. "I'm not sure how much they like me. I don't know if I can ask them for a favor like that."

"They just don't know you," Kris says encouragingly. "They can be immature, but they're both safe guys. You're in good hands."

Zitao turns over this last part of the conversation in his mind as he walks across the courtyard. Safe. Not nice, not good. _Safe._

It hadn't registered at the time, but as he waves a distracted hello to Kyungsoo, it's all he can think of: what an incredibly strange thing to say.

✖✖✖

The table is embroiled in a heated debate when Zitao finally makes it to lunch the next day. He sets his tray down in between Jongdae and Kyungsoo, flashing a quick smile in Baekhyun's direction which goes unnoticed. Chanyeol's still sitting across the room with the prefects, elbow digging painfully into Kris's side as he vultures the better pieces of meat off Kris's tray for himself.

Baekhyun looks _terrible_ , his face pale and drawn. It takes him a full beat before he responds to Jongdae, who's been shouting his name with increasing impatience, fingers snapping mere centimeters from his nose. Baekhyun turns, eyebrows furrowed. "Hmm? What?"

"As I was _saying_ —"

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Baekhyun bursts crossly. "Jongdae. Get out of my face, please. Why are we having this conversation again? It's got to be the third time, now, and my answer hasn't changed. There's no such thing."

Kim Jongin, a sloe-eyed first-year with wide, full lips and a reputation for dozing off against the shoulder of the nearest classmate, looks up from his chemistry homework. "But if it's really secret, how would you know?"

Jongin's another student easily folded into the pack—a friend of Baekhyun's, originally. Zitao presumes the connection comes through Baekhyun's father, although there's a moment where Jongdae mentions _dance lessons_ in an exaggerated whisper and Baekhyun colors vermilion and coughs into his fist until Kyungsoo claps him on the back. Jongin brings his roommate along with him, a lanky boy with a shock of bleached, white-blonde hair named Oh Sehun who sits stone-faced through most conversations before he breaks out in startling, helpless giggles at things Jongin murmurs under his breath while the others are talking.

Baekhyun rolls his eyes so hard Zitao swears he can hear it over the roar of the dining hall. "First year, eat your damn lunch and quit spreading those stupid rumors. I'll say it again: there's _no such thing._ " He sounds weary, his sentences punctuated with an unusual amount of irritation as he runs his fingers through his hair and sighs.

Sehun sits up a little straighter and reaches a bony hand across the table. "But hyung, the faculty—"

"—tell these stories to keep you compliant," Kyungsoo supplies helpfully, mimicking Baekhyun's curt intonation. "Sehun. Don't bother."

"You _really_ think there's something sordid going on?" Baekhyun says. "Start investigating the kitchen. What _is_ this shit?" He nudges the tray of watery potatoes across the table and sighs. "I wish Agata was still working here. She made the _best_ Řízek. Wasn't too bad at the dishes from home I convinced her to try, either. Remember the kimchi jjigae—"

"What happened to her?" Jongin asks curiously. "Was she fired?"

"The secret order got her," Jongdae teases, eyebrows wiggling.

"Fucking—Jongdae!" Baekhyun slams his fist on the table, startling a group of first years at the next table over with the loud clatter of silverware. Conversation lulls for a moment as every face in the room swivels towards them, prefects included. He clears his throat awkwardly and looks down into his hands. "She got married, asshole. Moved to Prague."

Chanyeol's still staring over at the table long after the rest of the dining hall has lost interest, eyebrows furrowed in contemplation until Kris says something and he turns away.

Zitao notices this and can't stifle his curiosity any longer. "Why doesn't Chanyeol sit with you?" he asks Baekhyun, handing him a napkin to sop up the worst of the potato he'd flung across the table by mistake.

Baekhyun takes the napkin and purses his lips. "It's not you, if that's what you're worried about. He's been sitting with Kris since the end of last year." He shrugs, a faint smile ghosting over his features. "Thanks for the napkin."

"Really? He seems—I'm sorry, I know I'm an inconvenience."

"Ah, quit it," Baekhyun leans over to nudge him with his shoulder. "I always like the company. I also like it when Chanyeol's pissed off. As far as I'm concerned, you're the best thing that's happened so far this semester." He flashes a toothy smile, the first cheerful expression Zitao has seen cross Baekhyun's face all day. "You're very interesting to me, Huang Zitao."

Zitao laughs. "I don't know why you'd say that, but thank you."

"I think," Baekhyun says, turning back to his splattered lunch, "that's probably the point."

✖✖✖

Zitao drags his feet to class the next morning, shoulders heavy with a level of exhaustion that felt more appropriate for his first day than after what should have been a full night's sleep. He'd woken up _twice_ last night to the sounds of banging doors, hushed whispering: _Shh! You'll wake him up!_ Every time he'd sat up to investigate, nothing in the room seemed amiss. A week of rooming with Chanyeol and Baekhyun and he'd learned their breathing patterns well enough to know that they seemed to be asleep, undisturbed by the noises he kept hearing.

"Maybe you're having vivid dreams," Kyungsoo hums in Zitao's direction just as the bell rings. "Or a nightmare."

"Nightmares are scarier than this. It's just strange," Zitao admits. "Nobody else seems to hear it. Could it be ghosts? Is this building haunted?"

Kyungsoo snorts and pulls out his notebook, head shaking in disbelief. " _Ghosts._ Really, Zitao?"

"I'm telling you, it's not a dream," he insists.

Professor Cermak taps his ruler against the desk and an attentive silence settles over the students. He goes through role call and writes the day's agenda on the board with a stub of chalk that seems to disappear between his meaty fingers.

The classroom's warm and they're reading aloud today. The slow drone of voices picking their way through _Othello_ lulls him into a drowsy stupor until he's rudely disrupted by a pencil in his ribs.

"Mmmwhat?"

"Zitao," Kyungsoo hisses out of the corner of his mouth, withdrawing his pencil. "It's your turn."

He looks down at the page in front of him and tries desperately to recall the last line he'd heard. His eyes search wildly for a familiar word before Kyungsoo intervenes again, flipping five pages and smoothing his finger along a string of Iago's dialogue.

"We'll speak after class, Mr. Huang," Cermak glowers disapprovingly. Kyungsoo shoots him a wide-eyed look, teeth worrying at his lower lip. Zitao nods resignedly, wishing he'd been able to hang onto his focus just long enough to get through the reading.

So much for doing well in classes. _Not an auspicious beginning, Zitao,_ he chastises himself as he catches Cermak's frown and lowers his head bashfully.

When the dismissal bell rings, signaling the five minute transition period between classes, Cermak waits until the last reluctant student filters out before he speaks. "You are the transfer student." It's an observation, not a question.

"Yes, sir."

"Newer than I am, even," he says, bemused. "Have you even finished unpacking your things?" There's chalk dust all over the elbows of his jacket from leaning against the chalkboard.

"Yes, sir."

"I looked at your file. Your background. It is different from the other students, yes?"

"Yes, sir," he intones a third time. _He's seen my file? It does exist, then._ He wants to ask what else was in the file but Cermak's contemplating the anxious fluttering of his hands with interest.

"Your father is dead."

The bluntness of the statement is jarring despite the musical lilt of his accent. It's still a foreign word to him, a foreign concept to wrap his head around. _Dead_. So abrupt. So final. Zitao's voice is quieter this time when he responds, his eyes averted. "Yes, sir."

"Interesting." And then, belatedly: "I am very sorry. It must be difficult."

Zitao shrugs and scuffs his toe against the floor.

"I am just thinking out loud," Cermak continues. "You have come to a very prestigious school, Zitao. Seems—unusual. An anomaly. You will forgive my curiosity, but—why are you here?"

A very good question. It's something Zitao's been pondering since before he even arrived. He settles on: "I'm going to school, sir."

Cermak smiles patiently. "I see. You will see fit not to sleep in class anymore, then."

"I wasn't—"

"Lines. Five hundred. _'I will not disrupt my education and disrespect my teacher by sleeping in class.'_ I'll expect it before class Monday."

"Sir—"

"Cursive."

Zitao's head bobs like an obedient marionette but internally he's groaning. His penmanship is not great, all things considered. He grips the pen too tightly, gets hand cramps far too often to get anything done in a timely fashion. Five hundred lines on top of the rest of his homework is going to _kill_ him. Still, he recognizes when he's got no choice but to agree or face demerits. "Yes, sir."

Cermak watches him carefully over his glasses. "You can go now, Mr. Huang. I am sure this will not be a problem again. It will serve you well to respect the prestige of this institution and put forth more effort. What would your father say?" This final punch to the gut is the most brutal of all. Zitao knows he doesn't belong here. He's felt it since the moment he stepped foot into the school with its cathedral ceilings and trust fund kids. But he _is_ here and there's certainly a reason someone arranged for his acceptance in the first place (although at the moment he hasn't got a clue what that reason could possibly be).

He resolves to try harder. He doesn't want to let the opportunity to go to waste.

✖✖✖

There's a massive stack of papers in his usual seat when he gets to lunch. Kyungsoo's beaming at him as he explains, "I told them what happened with Cermak. They wanted to help."

"You—help?" He sets his tray down and picks up the papers. It's his line-writing assignment, all five-hundred of them in neatly numbered rows. "Wow, I—don't know what to say?" He sits down heavily, looking at the faces around the table: Jongin, Sehun, Jongdae. Kyungsoo. Even Baekhyun, who seems more interested in deconstructing his sandwich than receiving any sort of thanks for his contribution. His chest swells with grateful affection.

"Standard procedure." Jongdae grins cheekily. "You'll return the favor for us someday."

"Probably Jongdae or Baekhyun. They're always getting into it with the professors," Kyungsoo confides in a sly whisper. "Jongdae especially."

Zitao swallows hard around the lump in his throat, chin tucking shyly against his chest when Sehun reaches out to pat him on the back.

"Wow. Really? It's just homework." Jongdae laughs and steals a large forkful of Zitao's dessert from his tray. "Lighten up."

"Making the new kid cry already? Jongdae. Control yourself."

Zitao looks up as the boy approaches the table. One of the prefects. Zitao vaguely recognizes the angular face and cat-like eyes and thinks he may have brushed his teeth at the sink next to him yesterday morning.

"Hyung, he's just choked up because we did his punishment from Cermak for him."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't just hear that." The boy rolls his eyes and extends a hand towards Zitao, who gives it a tentative shake. "I'm Minseok."

"Zitao."

"What's going on? Called a meeting and forgot to let me know?" A soft, reedy voice comes from overhead, a pair of slender, delicate hands settling gently on Baekhyun's shoulders. Baekhyun cranes his chin upward, frowning him into silence.

"Just meeting the transfer student," Minseok says cheerily, like Baekhyun's not trying to kill the kid with a pointed glare. "Yixing, this is Zitao."

Zitao twists in his seat to meet Yixing's placid, bespectacled gaze with a shy nod.

"Oh, yes. I'd heard. Nice to meet you, Zitao." He looks across the table at Kyungsoo and Jongdae. "It's finished, by the way," he says lightly. "Come see me later." His hands slip off Baekhyun's shoulders when he takes a step back. "I hope you like it here."

"Wait for me—" Minseok calls, waving at the boys with both hands. "See you later." He half-jogs to fall in step with Yixing's long, fluid strides.

"What's finished?" Zitao asks curiously. "More homework sharing?"

Jongin shakes his head. "Yixing's in charge of—"

"Jongin," Kyungsoo cuts in, a terse smile on his face. "Don't talk with your mouth full."

" _Hyung._ "

"Seriously. It's gross," Baekhyun says, snapping to attention and returning to the conversation. "Something like that. Don't worry about it. Oh, right, and—" he holds up a finger, "—by the way, don't be shocked when you get back to the room later. You've got a real bed now."

Zitao distinctly remembers rejecting the bed the day before and raises his eyebrows in surprise. "Oh. Wow. Great. Did you—I mean, the futon was fine, but—thank you."

He shrugs. "Don't be stupid. You can't sleep on that damn thing indefinitely. It can't be comfortable and it makes us look bad. You're a student here just like the rest of us. You needed a place to sleep that doesn't fold up at will."

Zitao blushes, nodding his head a few times. "Thank you."

"You're not gonna cry again, are you?" Baekhyun glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "I'll make them take it away again if you cry."

"I won't cry," he laughs. "I just appreciate it."

Baekhyun shrugs again. "Not a big deal."

It shouldn't be, really, except it is. Zitao's about to thank him for the third time when the bell rings and Baekhyun springs to his feet and dashes over to where Yixing's sitting. He hears whispering behind him from Kyungsoo and Jongdae, directed at Jongin and Sehun. He catches a few words— _tonight_ , _go_ , _later_ —and then Jongdae's slinging an arm around his shoulders to lead him through the double doors, mouth curled upward in a gleeful smile.

 

He wakes up _again_ in the middle of the night and he doesn't even realize he's heard anything until he's sitting bolt-upright, chest heaving, a cold sweat trickling down the back of his neck. He looks around and knows he's not imagining things this time because the room's empty. Chanyeol's bed looks like it's been slept in—sheets askew, pulled back as if he'd stepped out to go to the bathroom.

But Baekhyun's gone, too.

He pads around the hallways for a while, hoping to run into them. No trace—they're not in the bathroom or the student lounge. He ducks into an alcove when he thinks he hears someone coming but it's just an overnight janitor heading to the utility closet to get a screwdriver.

When he returns to the room, he wraps himself in the blankets and sits awake in his new bed, toes curled over the edge of the mattress as he listens intently for the sound of footsteps coming back to the room. He dozes off for what feels like a couple of seconds but when he wakes up, somebody's tucked him in. Chanyeol and Baekhyun are back in bed.

"I know I'm not imagining things," he whispers at their slumbering forms. "What are you doing? Where did you go?"

✖✖✖

Zitao's still thinking about it the next morning. It's a Saturday—he sleeps in late, skipping breakfast and rising just in time to trail down to the library to study, a stack of books under his arm. His father's notebook is at the top. He hasn't had time to re-read it since he arrived at SM and feels guilty for it. "I didn't forget about you, Dad," he murmurs, patting the calfskin cover. He cracks it open and flips to the page with the rat sketch again.

"What's that?" Baekhyun yawns, sliding into the seat across from him. He's still wearing his pajama pants, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head to hide a tangled, unbrushed mess of curls.

The library's almost completely deserted. There are a few students milling around—a group of assorted European students at a far table playing chess, a boy he recognizes vaguely as Pierre from his year sitting at a study carrel, head bowed over a textbook as he dozes.

Zitao's certainly been in bigger libraries—he's thinking of the time his class had taken a trip to the Qingdao Public Library and how many times he'd returned after that, just to wander past the shelves and marvel at the sheer number of volumes that could be housed in one building. SM's library is modest in comparison, but perhaps more beautiful and _certainly_ more charming with the old cherry wood tables and winding stacks of periodicals and reference materials lining the walls. _The knowledge that's probably entombed in here,_ he thinks, awed. _The history._

"Just—something from home." Zitao tries to shield the page with his hand but it's too late, Baekhyun's already gotten enough information from the glimpses he'd caught over his shoulder.

"Looks like a cipher." His mouth twists as he gives the book an experimental prod with his index finger. "Yixing's _really_ into those. I've—" He frowns and leans back over Zitao's arm. "Wow. This is really complex. Where did you find it?"

"It was my father's. I found it in his things."

Baekhyun stiffens, lips pursed, but doesn't say anything.

"You know," Zitao guesses immediately. He'd seen roughly the same reaction when he'd spoken to Kris earlier.

Baekhyun exhales, his whole body deflating as he nods. "I—Kris told us. Don't be mad at him, it's—you don't have—I'm sorry." His hand is warm on Zitao's wrist when he wraps his fingers around it and squeezes.

Zitao nods heavily. "It's all I've got left. I think I'd feel better if I knew."

"You should talk to Yixing, then." Baekhyun smiles. "Seriously. If anyone here knows how to decrypt this kind of thing, Yixing does. He's brilliant."

Temptation swells in Zitao. He _should_ be working on the homework for his French class, or the endless sheet of proofs he'd been assigned in mathematics, but for some reason he's fixated on the idea Baekhyun's just proposed. _Yixing can help._ "Alright, then, where do I find Yixing right now?"

Baekhyun taps a finger against his chin. "Common room, most likely. He'll be with his roommate, Junmyeon. Probably working on this kind of stuff, honestly. They always are."

"And the common room is... where?"

Baekhyun's face splits into a roguish grin. "I forget you're so new. One floor up, other side of the building. I'll take you."

True to his word, he leads Zitao up the stairs and through a darkened hallway. They've almost rounded the corner and Zitao can hear faint laughter drifting from an open door when Baekhyun grabs him by the collar and yanks him into an alcove to kiss him. His grasp is just a little too tight as he grinds his hips into Zitao for a moment and breaks away, leaving him red-faced and panting.

"Shit," Zitao croaks, taken aback. "What was _that_?"

Baekhyun shrugs, a lopsided smile tweaking the corners of his mouth as he brushes the hair from Zitao's forehead with an arched pinky. "Just. The look on your face. I don't know. I wanted to. I'm sorry."

"No—I don't—just a little warning next time," Zitao mumbles, bashful.

Baekhyun's expression warms, cheeks glowing rosy with pleasure. "Yeah. Yeah. Okay." He clears his throat. "Anyway. Here's the Common Room. I'll see you at lunch?"

"Yeah," Zitao repeats dizzily at Baekhyun's retreating form. "Lunch."

He waits until he's regained some sort of composure before he ducks into the open doorway of the common room. There are half a dozen students scattered on the overstuffed chairs, all upperclassmen. He recognizes Yixing and the prefect, Lu Han, sitting in the corner on a sofa, a large textbook cracked open on Yixing's knees. A third boy he assumes to be Junmyeon sits on the other side of Yixing, hands flailing animatedly as he tries to explain something to Lu Han, who nods with the measured patience of someone who's clearly lost and has no interest in being found.

Zitao swallows hard, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand one last time just in case, and shuffles over to them. "Excuse me. Yixing?"

Yixing's head snaps up. His eyebrows raise slightly when he finally pieces together where he's seen the face before. "Zitao. The transfer student."

"You remember." He smiles, relieved.

"What can I do for you?" Yixing asks. "Second years aren't really supposed to be in here—"

"I'm not—Baekhyun said you could possibly help me with this," he says, offering the notebook with a shaking hand.

Yixing frowns. "Did he tell you I'd do your math homework for you? Because—"

"It's not homework," Zitao assures him. "It's—well. Hard to explain."

"Alright, give it here, then." Yixing extends an open palm. "Zitao, you've met Lu Han and Junmyeon, right?"

"No, actually." He dips his head in acknowledgment. "Hi. Nice to meet you."

Junmyeon chuckles and gives a small wave. "Hi, Zitao. I've heard a lot about you from Baekhyun and Jongdae. I was wondering when I'd actually run into you."

Lu Han snorts. "Oh, no. You're the one rooming with Chanyeol and Baekhyun, aren't you?" Zitao nods and Lu Han clucks sympathetically. "I'm so sorry.

"It's not bad, really," Zitao says and this time it almost feels like honesty. "They're nice."

"Nice? Oh—right, I guess Chanyeol's not in his room much these days, anyway," Lu Han says, fondly exasperated. "When those two are together, though—it's a lot of fun, but it's pretty dangerous, too. The number of the demerits they've racked up... I don't know how they haven't been expelled."

"You act like you're concerned about their behavior!" Junmyeon exclaims. "Half the time, you're getting into trouble _with_ them and then pretending not to know anything about it so you don't have to issue demerits to anyone."

Lu Han shrugs, a guilty smile creeping onto his face as he redirects his attention to the notebook in Yixing's hands. "Whoa. What's that?"

"An incredibly difficult double cipher. Look at this—" Yixing stabs at a page somewhere towards the beginning of the notebook. "It starts out as an Affine shift but then switches to columnar, but—there's something else. Railfence?" He looks up, frowning. "Where'd you get this? What is it? It's talking about banking, I think, but I'm losing it every page or so."

"It's my father's," Zitao answers carefully. "You can read it?"

"Is this a father-son bonding thing?" he perks up. "That's _great_."

"No." Zitao swallows thickly. "It's not like that. He died."

Junmyeon's hand immediately reaches out to find Zitao's. "Oh," he murmurs quietly. He doesn't actually say he's sorry, although the look in all three pairs of eyes trained on him says that they are, desperately, and don't know how to express it.

Truth be told he's a little glad that they're not smothering him with condolences. He's tired of being bombarded by pitying words, especially when he ends up feeling like he needs to apologize to _them_ for bringing his loss to their attention. He'd rather not talk about it at all right now.

"Is this likely to be something private?" Yixing asks after a moment. "Should I be looking at this?"

Zitao shrugs. "It was in a box of his work things. It might have to do with a case he was working on before he died? But I feel like there's something in here I need to know, that might—I—I'm not sure, I just need to know. Please."

"Can I hold onto this?" Yixing asks kindly. "I promise I won't make any marks. I just want to spend some time with it. I've got a book back in my room that might be able to help."

Against his better judgment, Zitao nods. "Can I have it back tomorrow, though? I feel kind of weird being without it. It's all I've got left."

"Of course, of course." He flips to a page towards the back and hums thoughtfully. "Forgive me for the question I'm about to ask, Zitao, this isn't meant to pry or be insensitive in any way. How did you say your father died?"

"I didn't," he says carefully. "The police report says he fell asleep at the wheel."

Lu Han's mouth is pressed together in a thin line. "You don't sound like you believe that."

"I don't."

"Wow," Junmyeon breathes, shaking his head. "I don't know, Zitao. You really think that's true?"

"Do you have a copy of the police report? For curiosity's sake," Yixing clarifies.

"Yeah. In my room."

"Can you bring it by my room later?" Yixing asks. "We're in the room across the hall from Lu Han's. Let me take a look at it. I'll see what I can figure out."

Zitao's dumbfounded that he's so willing to hand over everything related to his father's case to a kid he barely knows. He can't explain it but there's something welcoming about Yixing's earnest smile, the serious slant of his jaw as he pores over the pages of scrawling entries, the dimple on his cheek that deepens in triumph every time he seems to recognize a word or phrase.

"Shouldn't be a problem," he says. "You really think you can crack it?"

"It'd be a first if I couldn't," Yixing says confidently, his eyes crinkling tight at the corners in a rare smile. "Give me a few days. I'll have more for you then."

Zitao's knees almost give out on him when he leaves the common room. He lowers himself to a seated position back in the alcove where Baekhyun had kissed him not twenty minutes ago and puts his head in his hands. It seems too good to be true: there's someone here that can _help,_ that can finally put to rest the nagging doubts he's had surrounding his father's death.

He feels lighter already, the worries of the past few months easing off his shoulders as he floats downstairs to the dining hall.

✖✖✖

He doesn't hear anything at all from Yixing after dropping off the police report, nor the entirety of Sunday. He's antsy for an update— _something, anything_ —but settles for impatiently jiggling his foot at the dinner table. Baekhyun punches him in the thigh twice over the course of the meal, eyeing him with curiosity when he puts both hands against his knee to forcibly stop the motion from continuing.

They don't speak about the kiss, nor does Baekhyun make any further overtures to repeat it, but something still feels different between them, charged with a sort of static electricity that makes every touch seem exaggerated, more intense—even the casual ones, like the punch, or the brushing of their shoulders when they pass each other at the threshold of their room before bed.

He's also preoccupied with other things as he gets ready to go to sleep that night, thinking about the noises he's been hearing. He's pretty sure there's _something_ going on. There's no way he could have imagined the same thing this many nights in a row. He's disappointed when he wakes up the next morning to the sound of Chanyeol's alarm sputtering angrily from underneath his pillow, abandoned by its owner. He storms over to the clock, slaps it a few times until it turns off, and spends the rest of the day lazing under the covers purely out of spite.

He waits the next night again with his eyes closed, hoping. When he feels sleep start to wash over him he pinches himself under the covers to startle himself awake. The hallway's long since fallen quiet—the last creaking swing of the bathroom door was nearly an hour ago and _still_ nothing. He's just about to give up on it and roll over to fall asleep properly when he hears Chanyeol's voice, raspy and soft across the still room.

"Baekhyun."

"Mmm."

"Come on. We're going to be late."

"Five more minutes. I want to be sure. We cut it pretty close yesterday."

A mattress groans as someone sits up. "Is he asleep?"

"Yeah. He sleeps like a rock, don't worry about it."

"What about the other night? He was sleeping sitting up when we came in! It scared the hell out of me." Chanyeol's voice is nervous. "I thought for sure he'd figured it out."

"He hasn't said anything. Not that you even talk to him anyway to know that." The loud rustle of bedsheets, followed by the slap of bare feet on the wooden floor.

"He's fine. He's been quiet and he's kept his corner of the room clean."

"Sounds like there's a _'but—'_ in there somewhere."

"I don't need new friends. I'm happy with the ones I've got."

"He's a nice kid, Chanyeol. Did I tell you he _cried_ when we—"

"Kyungsoo told me. That's fine. I just—"

"You'd like him."

"Don't, Baekhyun. And fucking lower your voice or you really _will_ wake him up."

Someone's sneakers clunk a little too loudly as they're pulled on. _Chanyeol's, probably,_ Zitao imagines although he's still got his eyes closed. He's holding his breath, doesn't dare exhale for fear it'll draw their attention.

"What?"

"I know you. I know what this is."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The door closes so gently that Zitao doesn't even hear the latch click, just their muffled voices floating away from him down the hallway. He waits until he can't make them out anymore before he peels the covers back and steals after them.

He's amazed at how quickly they must have been moving—he doesn't catch up until he's nearly down to the main entrance hall, a few floors down. He's also astounded to see that they've been joined by at least half a dozen other boys. He thinks he recognizes Jongdae, hair mussed and flat across his forehead, the rounded shoulders of Jongin's tired slumping, maybe even Sehun's blonde head bouncing along next to Jongin as the group passes underneath a lamp and disappears around a corner.

"What the fuck," Zitao breathes when he turns down the hallway past the kitchen. He's sure this was where they went, but they're gone. He pokes his head into the kitchen and the dining hall just to be sure, but there's no sign of them, not a single trace at all.

Defeated, he climbs the stairs back to bed and lies under the cover like he's made of stone, waiting. It's nearly dawn when they return, Baekhyun grumbling under his breath about _'the code'_ until Chanyeol silences him with a yawning sigh: "What do you want me to do about it? Bring it up at the next meeting."

"I wanted to talk about it tonight, though."

"Why didn't you, then?" Chanyeol already sounds like he's half asleep.

"Didn't get a chance to. I didn't see Yixing at all, remember?"

_Code. Meeting. Secret order,_ Zitao thinks frantically, putting it together. _That day at the lunch table. Fuck._ They'd been arguing about it. _It's done,_ Yixing had said.

He dreams of robed figures and wakes up trembling to the sound of a slamming door.

 

When he gets a chance to look at the alarm clock he's started to keep under his pillow, he scowls at the time blinking back at him. Well before his alarm's due to go off. He rolls over and hears the burgeoning commotion in the hallway. Chanyeol's bed is empty and Baekhyun's propped up on his elbows in bed, bleary-eyed and yawning.

"What's going on?" Zitao mumbles, arms pushing upward in a long stretch.

Baekhyun shakes his head. "Not sure. Chanyeol just left to go see."

"It's so early," Zitao protests.

The eruption of a sudden, heated argument startles Baekhyun out of his daze. "Wait here," he cautions, cracking the door open to peer outside. "Guys. What's going on?"

Zitao can't see who he's directing the question to but he thinks he's got a pretty good idea when Chanyeol's voice thunders, "He's fucking gone. He never came back last night."

"Chanyeol." Kris's voice cuts through, calm but unyieldingly firm as he tries to smooth over the situation. "Not now. Guys, go back to your rooms. We'll have a floor meeting when I know what's going on."

Zitao's on his feet by now, peering over Baekhyun's head at the scene unfolding in the hallway. The door five down from their room is wide open, students from the rooms on both sides scattered all the way down to Kris's door and the stairwell. A few French students are poking their heads out from their room, blinking curiously at the sight of Kris and Lu Han standing with their hands on Junmyeon's shoulder. At the end of the hall, Sehun and Jongin are whispering in each other's ears, hands cupped, eyes startled and wide. Chanyeol's a few feet from Baekhyun, arms across his chest and Kyungsoo at his elbow. Jongdae's frowning, clearly troubled.

Lu Han turns his head to a noise that the others seem to miss in the clamor and turns around, fingers splayed. "Minseok's coming back. Come on, guys," he urges, waving his arms. "Let the faculty deal with this."

Baekhyun withdraws, nudging Zitao out of the way to retreat to his bed. Chanyeol pushes past a moment later and shuts the door.

"He really wasn't joking," Baekhyun says hoarsely. His face is pale.

"I _told_ you guys. It was weird that he blew off the meeting."

"I know. I know."

Chanyeol finally notices the stricken look on Baekhyun's face. He takes a seat next to him on the bed, patting him on the shoulder with a tentative hand. It looks like he wants to comfort Baekhyun but he's afraid to lie and say that it's okay when nobody's got a fucking clue what's going on. "Maybe he's playing a prank on us," he offers weakly after a moment. "He'll be in the library, laughing at us for getting worked up over nothing."

"No." Baekhyun shakes his head. "He wouldn't—this is different. It _feels_ different. He would have left a note for Junmyeon." He puts his thumb nail between his teeth and bites down hard on it. "I hope he's not hurt."

✖✖✖

The search team arrives shortly after Minseok returns with the headmaster, a cadre of policemen from a nearby town with bloodhounds that wuff loudly and frighten the hell out of Zitao. They crisscross the grounds, out past the PE fields and down the road before the trail seems to go dead.

"He may have been picked up in a car at the end of the driveway," the police chief suggests to Brodsky when the search team returns. The dogs are placid now, disinterested in the smell of the eavesdropping boys hovering in the doorframe and down the hallway. "Have you spoken to his parents?"

There are half a dozen faculty members standing around in various states of casual dress. Zitao's surprised to see Cermak there, an old rugby shirt buttoned up to his throat as he leans in to mumble something to the French professor, Lefebvre. The history professor, Malcolm, keeps shooting worried looks at the eavesdropping students and wringing his hands for lack of anything better to do with them.

It's the first time Zitao's had the chance to lay eyes on Brodsky. He's astonished at what he sees. He's not sure what he was expecting, but a pair of deep-set, tea-green eyes and a neatly manicured beard weren't anywhere on the radar. If he'd thought Kris was tall before, he's reconsidering it. Brodsky's _much_ taller, well over two hundred centimeters at least, judging from the crick Zitao's got in his neck from looking up at the man's face. He looks like he'd probably be an incredibly intimidating figure if he weren't being read the riot act by the chief of the local police force.

"I—not yet," Brodsky murmurs into his beard, head bowed in shame. "His father's an influential man, he can't—this would reflect poorly.

The policeman scoffs. "You have a missing student."

"Maybe he planned this. Maybe he went on a joyride to Prague. This will all look very silly if he's back in a few days." It's flimsy reasoning. Brodsky's face pulls into a miserable grimace. He really doesn't want to make this phone call.

"What if he's been kidnapped?" Lu Han pipes up. "His father's diplomatic status with the UN is fairly well known and there's been unrest lately over a decision about Tibet. There were reports of rioting. What if it's a political thing?"

"I'm going to need that phone number," the police chief warns sternly. "We'll make the call in your office."

Brodsky glances at the boys, glare locking briefly with Zitao's as he walks past. Zitao feels a shiver traverse the entire length of his spine at the vast coldness in his eyes. Cermak follows behind and offers the boys something approximating a smile, albeit an extremely out-of-practice one.

"Mr Zhang will be found," he says. "Go to breakfast."

 

Breakfast is tense. The table's more crowded than usual—Chanyeol's pulled up a chair next to Baekhyun and keeps ripping his napkin into shreds, piling the strips neatly onto his empty plate. Junmyeon's sitting next to Jongdae, face vacant with shock. Even Minseok's decided to join them this morning instead of sitting with Lu Han and Kris, poking glumly at the pot of raspberry jam on the table and nodding to the questions he's asked without really answering them. Nobody's really in the mood to eat except for Jongin, who keeps shoveling egg into his mouth until Kyungsoo notices the tears forming at the corners of his eyes and tugs the fork out of his hand.

"He'd _really_ delay notification to save his stupid ass? We're not safe here," Sehun's saying, nose wrinkled in disgust. "Maybe I should transfer."

"Shut the fuck up, first year, and eat your damn breakfast," Chanyeol snaps irritably. " _I'm_ here. Why would they take him and not me? He wasn't kidnapped."

"We don't know anything," Minseok says to no one in particular. He has a serene look on his face but there's an edge to his voice when he urges, "Stop speculating, all of you."

"What happened? Were you guys with him last night?" Zitao asks in a low voice. Kyungsoo looks away from Jongin, eyes like saucers.

"We didn't—"

"We were just playing a game of football out in the field," Chanyeol says, voice steely with displeasure. "We've already been interviewed by the police, though. No need to play detective right now, new kid."

"I'm not—I didn't think you—" Zitao fumbles, humiliation washing over him. Jongin and Sehun exchange twin looks of concern.

"Just don't," Baekhyun says gently, speaking for the first time since they'd sat down. "It's not really anything to do with you, anyway."

Zitao thinks of Yixing's soft voice calling for help and feels sick as he stares down into his bowl of porridge.

✖✖✖

Naturally, classes are canceled for the rest of the day. Faculty members take it upon themselves to organize into impromptu search parties, pairs and trios that lap the campus, finding nothing. The students are just as listless—Zitao keeps finding groups huddled in corners of the school, grim-faced and speechless. Nobody feels safe enough to be alone.

He finally can't stand being in the room anymore. Baekhyun's been sitting on his bed in silence since they'd come back from breakfast, knees tucked under his chin watching Chanyeol pace until _he'd_ gotten sick of being there and had gone to find Kris. Zitao puts a timid hand on Baekhyun's shoulder and asks if he's going to be okay by himself for a little while. He thinks he sees Baekhyun nod.

He ends up at the library to do homework. He's not really sure what else he _can_ do right now and at least it gives him something to concentrate on. Clearly he's the only one who's thought this a fitting distraction—it's deserted except for the familiar students talking in hushed tones at the front desk. Jongdae and Junmyeon, Lu Han and Minseok. Jongdae's hand is cemented between Junmyeon's shoulder blades in a gesture of comfort as he sniffles and shakes his head at something Minseok's saying. They all look up when Zitao approaches, the hard lines in their foreheads smoothing one by one as they recognize him as a friend.

"Zitao," Jongdae greets, patting the desk next to him. "Come sit."

"Hi," he says shyly, chin dipping against his chest. "I'm sorry to interrupt. I was upstairs, but the room was just a little... tense."

"Chanyeol?" Minseok guesses.

Zitao almost smirks at the assumption. "Not really. He left to go find Kris. But Baekhyun, he hasn't moved or said anything since breakfast." The conversation lulls awkwardly before Zitao works up the courage to ask: "Any news about Yixing?"

Lu Han bows his head. "Nothing yet."

Junmyeon's eyes are rimmed red. He looks like he's going to cry.

"I'm sorry," Zitao whispers. "I shouldn't have—"

"No, it's okay." Junmyeon shakes his head and forces a smile. "We're all going to seem pretty silly for worrying when he shows up." It's particularly poor bluffing on Junmyeon's part. Everyone seems to ignore this, or else has the decency to pretend they don't notice.

"He's probably just avoiding Malcolm's exam," Lu Han jokes dutifully to ease the mood. "That's what _I'd_ do. Buy some extra time."

"Of course you would," Minseok says tiredly. "You're never prepared for the exams because you don't actually bother to take any notes in class."

"Hey. I've got straight A's too," Lu Han argues. "Does it matter how I get them? You're just mad we get the same grades even after you spend all night studying and I get plenty of sleep."

Minseok reaches out to swipe at Lu Han, who artfully dodges the hand with the honed skill of someone who's had a lot of practice avoiding slaps.

"Oh, that reminds me," Junmyeon says. "When did you get your notebook back from Yixing? We couldn't find it when we were searching his things."

Zitao frowns. "I never got it back. As far as I knew, he still had it."

Minseok shakes his head. "He was working on it down here. He actually had to pull a book to help him with something—and then he got excited and said he had to go find you. He never did?"

"Let me see the book," Junmyeon says as he sits up and pulls away from Jongdae. "Have you re-shelved it yet?"

"Not yet," Minseok says slowly, turning to retrieve a few hardcover books from the handcart parked idly next to the desk. "It was one of these."

"Probably not the biography on Turing, although set that aside for me, will you? It looks interesting," Junmyeon says, selecting a heavy, leather bound book on advanced cryptanalysis from the stack and cracking it open. A piece of paper flutters to the floor. It seems to go unnoticed by everyone except Zitao, who stares at it curiously. "This, on the other hand... seems like a decent prospect. Was it this one?"

"Looks about right." Minseok shrugs. "Wasn't really paying attention. Had my own things to take care of."

Junmyeon spreads the book across his lap and hastily flips through the pages. "I don't—see—wait." He stops at a page and squints. "Yes. This is it."

"How can you tell?" Jongdae leans forward to inspect what Junmyeon's found, brows furrowed.

"Look. He's been writing in the margins here."

"He _what_?" Minseok sighs, exasperated. "You _guys_. I'm going to kill you. Who do you think has to erase all the marked books?"

"Never mind that right now— _look_ ," Junmyeon says, tapping the curve of the page right near the binding. "He's got a list here. All grouped in pairs. Wow. That seems like overkill." He looks up. "All this for one document? What was your dad keeping in there? State secrets?"

"I don't know," Zitao says honestly. "I guess Yixing's the one to ask about what's in there, not me."

"So he cracked it?" Lu Han smiles in spite of the situation. "Of course he did. Fucking Yixing. Better than a computer."

Jongdae looks up. "What happened to the notebook, then? Did he have it with him when he disappeared?"

"It'd help if we had a better timeline. I was hoping Zitao had seen him after I did." Minseok bites the inside of his cheek in thought. "Looks like we're back to square one."

"Hold on." Zitao hops off the desk to retrieve the piece of paper he's been watching. "This fell out when you opened the book. Does this mean anything?"

Lu Han looks at it for a moment, expression unreadable, before he hands it over to Junmyeon. "He's your roommate. What does it say?"

Junmyeon squints at it for a moment before he chuckles and shoves it in his pocket. "It's nothing. A rude note to me about Cermak's last assignment."

"You guys write notes to each other in code?" Zitao raises an eyebrow. "Why? That seems really unnecessary."

"What happens when a teacher normally finds a note? They read it out loud to the class and then they punish you—right?" Zitao nods and Jumyeon continues, "If they find this, it's gibberish. Can't punish you for gibberish."

"They don't realize it's a code?"

"They haven't yet." Lu Han grins. "Great idea, right?"

"It's—something," Zitao laughs, a little dazed at how complicated it all seemed to be. Back at home he'd passed plenty of notes, usually scribbled on the back of pages ripped out of notebooks.

Come to think of it, he'd gotten in trouble for it just as often—maybe they were onto something with this cipher thing.

"Come on. Let's get some lunch," Jongdae encourages, bouncing up on the balls of his feet. "I'm starving."

"You skipped breakfast. Of course you're starving."

Zitao falls in step behind the other four, tuning out their chattering to focus on his own thoughts. Yixing had cracked it—Yixing was helping him and had found something. Yixing had gone missing sometime after going to look for Zitao. Was it related? Bad timing?

As Jongdae calls his name, urging him to catch up to the rest of the group, Zitao makes up his mind. _He was trying to help me. I'm not going to sit back and wait. He's the one who needs help now, and I'm going to find him._

 

Zitao spends the rest of the evening devising a plan to slip out of the dormitory to go search for Yixing. He barely speaks to the table at dinner and begs off early to shower and get into bed. He wants to get started tonight but the faculty are still patrolling in shifts and he doesn't want to run the risk of being caught and issued enough demerits to send him packing on the spot.

He debates asking Baekhyun for help but every time he thinks he might, the conversation at breakfast crosses his mind. He knows what Baekhyun would probably say: _not your business, don't get involved._

So he makes a compromise with himself: if they haven't found Yixing by tomorrow, he'll do it on his own. He presses his face into his pillow and closes his eyes.

Shortly after, Chanyeol comes into the room smelling like shampoo and aftershave, humming under his breath. It's not particularly in tune.

"He's asleep already?" he asks Baekhyun. The towel makes a loud slapping noise as Chanyeol throws it across the room to the hamper in the corner and misses. Zitao stiffens. They're talking about him.

"I guess he's tired."

"Can't imagine why. He didn't do shit today. He wasn't up half of last night, either," Chanyeol growls.

"Enough. Leave him alone," Baekhyun chides. "Here. I've got something to show you. What do you make of that?"

"What is it?" Chanyeol asks curiously. Zitao can actually hear the frown in his voice as he takes the paper from Baekhyun and skims it. "A note from Yixing? Where'd you find this?"

"Zitao found it in the library. Gave it to Junmyeon."

"Of course." There's a beat of contemplation. "But what good does this do us? It's not even the whole thing. Where's the second page?"

"I don't know. Minseok went back and looked for it but it wasn't there. Yixing was working on something for Zitao before he disappeared. This was in the book he was using."

Zitao cringes as Chanyeol clucks disapprovingly. "Working on _what_ , exactly?"

"Shh. Not so loud," Baekhyun hushes him. Zitao freezes and feels every muscle in his body turn to stone out of sheer panic that he'll be discovered awake and will have to explain what he's doing listening to their conversation. He feels guilty—they're having it while he's in the room, after all, but he's got nowhere else to go. "He's definitely suspicious that something's up. How did he know we were supposed to be with Yixing last night?"

"So much for sleeping like a rock," Chanyeol huffs. "I know how this is going to end up. You're going to beg us to initiate him. Just because you _like_ the kid doesn't _mean_ he needs to know about the Exo Club—"

"Chanyeol."

"—was supposed to be _just us_ —"

" _Chanyeol_. Knock it off. I didn't say anything like that. Stop getting worked up or you really _will_ wake him."

The pause that follows lasts so long that Zitao thinks they must've fallen asleep. His shoulders are just starting to relax, eyelids heavy and sinking when Chanyeol speaks again: "You really think that note came from Yixing?"

"Of course it did. Nobody else bothers writing double ciphers," Baekhyun whispers. "I wish we knew when he'd left it, though. Who knows if he's used that book before? It might be really old."

Zitao strains to hear the rest of their conversation but he's too drowsy and can't fight off the exhaustion any longer.


	3. Chapter 3

He's awake less than an hour later, though. He thinks he hears something again—the heavy click of a door swinging shut, maybe—but when he sits up all he hears is the quiet ticking of a discarded watch on the desk, Chanyeol's hushed breathing, covers rustling as Baekhyun rolls over and drapes an arm across his face with a heavy sigh.

After scrunching his eyes shut and wishing to go back to sleep doesn't work, he abandons the bed and wanders down the hall to the communal bathroom in search of a drink of water.

He's taken aback by the amount of blood splattered across the counter when he swings open the door and shuffles around the corner: the bright red pooling against the drain in the sink, spidery drops across the gleaming chrome taps. It looks like the beginnings of a Jackson Pollock painting. He lets out a wail and thinks _dad_ and then he adds the _e_ and thinks _dead_ and it's not until Baekhyun slides one hand over his mouth and one around his waist that he realizes he can't scream anymore because his lungs are burning vacant.

"Fuck, be quiet. It's _okay_ ," Baekhyun hisses. "You're making a scene."

_Stop making a scene, kid—you're the man of the house now—_

"He's dead." Zitao wilts, his bones turning to nothing but marrow as he stumbles a little and clutches at Baekhyun's shoulders for support.

The shorter boy struggles under the additional weight. "Dead? Jesus, you're having a night terror. You're sleepwalking." His voice is annoyed but he doesn't let go, even pulls Zitao a little closer when he starts trembling.

"I heard—" Something clicks. "Somebody was talking about Yixing."

Baekhyun's eyebrows disappear into his hairline. "Now you're _definitely_ having a nightmare. He's still missing."

"But the _blood_ —"

"It's me, Zitao." Kyungsoo's apology floats from a bathroom stall. He pokes his head around the edge of the door and Zitao sees the fists of toilet paper wadded against his nose. "I walked into the bedpost in the dark. I'm sorry about the mess, I didn't mean to scare you."

Zitao's still shivering uncontrollably when Baekhyun manages to usher him back to the room.

"Sit," Baekhyun commands. "We need to talk."

Zitao obeys, knee fidgeting uncontrollably until Baekhyun sits too, cupping his hand over Zitao's knee. "I'm fine," Zitao lies. "I was just surprised, that's all."

Above them, Chanyeol settles a hip against the window ledge, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose as he stares out across the darkened lawn. Zitao watches him nervously.

"I know you are. I'm not talking about tonight." Baekhyun's eyes lock with Zitao's. "Accidents happen. I would have reacted the same way."

"I'm not good with blood," Zitao mumbles.

"Who _is_? Zitao, I'm just—why did you think it was Yixing? Where did that come from?" He squeezes Zitao's knee a little for emphasis. "You barely know him."

Chanyeol finally speaks. "Why do you think he's dead?"

Zitao shakes his head to buy some time. "I don't," he says finally. "I was just—I don't know why I said it. I'm sorry."

Baekhyun opens his mouth but he's interrupted by a muffled knock at the door. "Come in," he calls, just as Kris's head pokes around the frame.

"Everything okay? I heard screaming." He looks drained, brow puckered with worry. He obviously hasn't been to bed yet.

"Don't worry about it. Sorry to bother you." Baekhyun's sunny smile falters for a moment. "We just discovered the sight of blood turns Zitao into a little girl."

Kris's eyes widen in alarm. "Blood? Jesus, what—who's bleeding?"

"Kyungsoo had a bloody nose." Baekhyun waves a dismissive hand in Kris's direction. "He's okay—and we cleaned up the bathroom."

"Uh huh." Kris's gaze is trained on Chanyeol. "You sure there's nothing wrong?"

Chanyeol doesn't bother to look at Zitao. "Why would you fucking say he was dead?" he mutters angrily, face dark. "Didn't I tell you, Baekhyun? He knows something."

"Chanyeol," Baekhyun warns.

Kris's head swivels between Chanyeol and Baekhyun. "You guys? What's going on?" The floorboards creak under his slippered feet when he crosses the room to stand between them.

"Nothing." Baekhyun's mouth sets into an obstinate line. "Chanyeol's just being a dick. Nothing new."

"Why don't you tell him?" Chanyeol challenges, arms crossing in front of his chest. "Tell Kris what Zitao said. Tell him what he thinks happened to Yixing." Baekhyun's eyes go wide, imploring Chanyeol to just _shut the fuck up, please_ but Chanyeol's too worked up to let it go anymore. "He thinks he's _dead_. Now, where would he get an idea like that?"

"I know about the secret order!" Zitao blurts, chest tightening with panic. "I know—I'm sorry—I know I wasn't supposed to hear—"

"The _what_?" Baekhyun laughs, startled. "What are you talking about? Did Jongdae—"

"The secret order. The club. The other night. You were talking—about a code..." Zitao trails off, regretting the words the instant they leave his mouth. It sounds delusional.

Baekhyun's still laughing, hands fanned against his mouth in a poor attempt to stifle his squeaking laughter. "You—think—fuck, I'm so sorry the others had to miss this. We're not—" He breaks off, a fit of giggles swallowing his words.

Chanyeol closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the pane of glass, swearing quietly. "Here we fucking go. I knew this was going to happen. How do we know we can trust him?"

"You're _roommates_. You should try to be friends, too," Kris says smoothly, ignoring the dirty look thrown in his direction. "Relax, Chanyeol." He gives Chanyeol a gentle pat on the shoulder. "He's one of us."

"One of you?" Zitao asks. "I don't understand."

Baekhyun finally manages to rein in his mirth long enough to say, "We're a _club_ , yes, but—we didn't, like, sacrifice Yixing or anything like that." He snorts and presses the heel of his hand against his temple. "Jesus. Anyway. I don't know what you're thinking, Zitao, but it's wrong. We've got nothing to do with that stupid school legend."

Kris rolls his eyes. "I told Jongdae to stop talking about it! Do you know how many times I've had to tell the first years there's no such thing as _L'Ordre Secret_? Fucking idiot."

Baekhyun nearly loses it again and has to take a few deep breaths through his nose before he continues. "We're an exploration club. We sneak off school grounds to investigate the nearby towns, abandoned buildings, stuff like that. It's in violation of half a dozen school rules, so of course we can't meet openly. Kris and Yixing are in charge of setting up the outings."

"Were," Chanyeol corrects in a flat, unaffected voice.

"Are," Baekhyun repeats. "They scout locations, leave trail markers, the whole thing. There's even a prize of some sort if we follow all the directions correctly."

Zitao's floored. "An exploration club," he echoes. "You've been sneaking out every night to do scavenger hunts?"

" _Every_ night? You heard us?" Chanyeol smacks his forehead in exasperation. "I knew this was a bad idea. Just stop—" Kris slides his palm against the back of Chanyeol's neck and squeezes it to silence him. Chanyeol's entire body buckles into the gesture but he looks less annoyed.

"No," Kris says when Chanyeol's quiet. "He's part of this, now."

Baekhyun presses on, ignoring Chanyeol's outburst. "You make it sound so lame! It's actually pretty difficult. The clues are all ciphers. Yixing writes them— _that's_ what I meant when I was talking about the code. It's an _actual_ code." He bites his lip. "He did the last one all by himself and it was really tricky—a bunch of us had to give up on it. I still don't know where we were supposed to go. And with Yixing missing... we're not going to know until one of us breaks the code or we find him, whichever comes first."

The embarrassment burns right to the tips of Zitao's ears. "I'm sorry," he manages to say. "I'm—I shouldn't have been spying on you guys. I thought... never mind."

"So what was Yixing working on for you before he disappeared?" Chanyeol asks. His tone has shifted into something like genuine curiosity now. Kris nudges him with his hip to make room on the windowsill and he complies without an argument, eyes still focused on Zitao.

"After my father died—" Zitao begins.

Chanyeol's brows knit together but before he can open his mouth to say anything, Kris puts a hand on his forearm and nods for Zitao to proceed.

"—I found a notebook in a box of his stuff from work. All codes and stuff, like your notes. I took it to my father's partner and he'd never seen it before. I haven't heard from him since, so I guess the lady in forensics never got anywhere decoding it."

"I've never seen anything like it," Baekhyun confirms. "I thought Yixing was neurotic about encrypting messages, but this was some next-level shit."

"And Yixing thought he could read it?" Chanyeol raises an eyebrow. "I mean, he's good, but if the _police_ —"

"He already had the gist of things, I think. When I showed it to him, he said it was something about banking."

"Banking?" Kris leans forward, suddenly riveted. "Did he say anything else?"

Zitao shakes his head. "He said he needed some time. Minseok said he was supposed to come look for me, but he never did."

"We've got to find that notebook," Kris announces, springing to his feet so suddenly that Chanyeol clutches onto the nearby desk to keep his balance. " _I'm_ curious to know what Yixing found, too."

"Junmyeon said it wasn't in his things." Zitao lifts his shoulder in a tired shrug. "I don't know what happened to it. He might still have it." He looks down at his hands in his lap. "Wherever he is, I mean."

"It's like I've been saying. We should be looking for him ourselves," Chanyeol mutters. He sounds like he's picking up an argument from earlier. "We've got a better chance of finding him than the faculty." Zitao nearly smiles at this. Hours earlier, he'd been thinking the same thing. He feels more confident in his decision now that he knows he's not alone.

"Not tonight, though," Baekhyun says through a yawn. "It's _late_ , professors are still on high alert because Yixing's missing—we'll never get out."

Chanyeol's expression is reluctant. "But—"

"Baekhyun's right," Kris agrees, speaking over Chanyeol. "Besides. It'll be morning soon. We'll talk about it at breakfast." He looks first to Chanyeol, then Baekhyun, before his eyes come to rest on Zitao's face. "No more secrets, okay? If we're going to figure this out—Zitao's in the loop, too."

Chanyeol sighs heavily. "But Kris. _Hyung_ —"

"I'll see you guys in the morning. I need to check on Kyungsoo before I go back to bed." Kris smiles and gives a gentle wave. "Don't look so worried, Zitao. Didn't I tell you they were safe?"

Baekhyun snorts as the door closes behind Kris. "He told you we were safe? That's hilarious." He ducks behind Zitao just in time to avoid a well-aimed pillow from Chanyeol.

"I can't believe you, Baekhyun."

"What?" He blinks out at Chanyeol from Zitao's shoulder.

Chanyeol flings his hands up in the air and turns around to hit the lights. The room plunges into darkness. " _We're not going to tell him,_ you said." His impression of Baekhyun's voice is spot-on. " _I promise. Membership to the Exo Club is closed,_ you said. Good job."

"In case you hit your head and missed the past twenty minutes, _you_ brought it up in front of Kris." Baekhyun sits up. "Anyway. Stop talking about him like he's not here. It's done, now."

The bed groans in protest when Chanyeol flings his body against the mattress and sighs loudly. He doesn't respond. Baekhyun turns his attention to Zitao, who's been sitting awkwardly between the sparring best friends and trying to disappear.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Zitao croaks.

"Are you going to lie down?" He pats the comforter. "Come on."

Zitao blinks. "I—what?"

"Lie down." He pulls Zitao's wrist out from underneath him and settles his chin against Zitao's shoulder. "Sleep. Is this a hard concept to grasp?"

"I—with you?"

"Problem?" Baekhyun leans back just enough to catch a sliver of moonlight with his forehead. "You want me to leave? You just seemed kind of freaked out, still, and—"

"No, it's—I just—it's okay. Stay." Zitao's surprised that the word falls out of his mouth and even more surprised when he realizes he'd meant it. He's still shaken from what he'd seen in the bathroom earlier. He's even more confused after the conversation he'd just had with Kris and he just needs—something. Comfort, maybe.

Baekhyun's already buried his face into the pillow. His voice is muffled when he says, "We'll talk in the morning, alright? About Yixing, I mean."

Zitao nods. Lulled by Baekhyun's steady breathing, he feels the quivering anxiety relax from his muscles and the weight of the past twenty four hours hits him like a freight train.

He's out before he can count to three.

✖✖✖

By the time the groundskeeper realizes who it is staggering up the gravel drive the next morning, ankle dragging uselessly behind him, he's sprinting back to the dormitory shouting for help: " _Pomoc! To je on! Pomoc!_ "* Yixing, to his credit, seems determined to finish the walk. He almost makes it to the threshold before his good leg gives out on him and he crumples to his knees in the dirt.

Breakfast has just begun.

Kris hears it first. The entire Exo Club is seated around the prefects' table that morning: Lu Han, Minseok, Junmyeon, Kyungsoo (who smiles apologetically at Zitao and assures him, _"I wanted to tell you why you were waking up, really, I did."_ ), Jongdae ( _"Welcome to L'Ordre Secret, Chosen One."_ ), Chanyeol, and Baekhyun (who rolls his eyes and promptly smacks the back of Jongdae's head). Jongin and Sehun are there, too, elbowing each other for the last croissant before Lu Han makes the decision for them by eating it himself.

"What?" Junmyeon looks up from his juice when Kris rises to his feet and nearly takes the plate of breakfast sausage with him. "What is it?"

"I don't know. Somebody's yelling—"

Minseok turns his head for a moment, face creased in concentration. The dining hall's noisy, certainly, but the screaming is _loud_. Zitao's surprised more students haven't noticed it. "It's Czech," Minseok says after a few moments, pivoting in his chair to face his breakfast again. "That's your department. I'm lost."

"Czech?" Zitao repeats faintly, setting his spoon down on the table.

"Yeah. Kris kind of has a knack for languages," Baekhyun murmurs. "Comes in handy when you need to get somewhere only a staff member can go. They like it when you can talk to them. Makes them more likely to do you a favor."

Kris is already hurrying towards the door by the time Zitao lifts his eyes.

"Now where's he going?" Jongdae asks.

"It's Yixing," Junmyeon guesses immediately. He's out of his seat too, the entire table at his heels as they round the corner and screech to a halt in the foyer. Junmyeon's right, of course. It's Yixing—it's also Cermak and Kris attending to a woozy Yixing who keeps muttering something that sounds like _no, stop_ through his gritted teeth.

"Fuck," Chanyeol breathes. Baekhyun reaches out for Zitao's hand in the chaos and squeezes it for reassurance.

Summoned by the groundskeeper's shouts, Brodsky emerges from his office, face haggard from sleep deprivation. "What? Who is it?" His gaze alights on Yixing and he goes pale. " _Sanitka._ Ambulance. Someone."

The entire student body has materialized behind the Exo Club, crowding closely for a better look. Chanyeol uses his height to block the worst of the offenders and Jongin elbows one of the German students, Hartmut, in the stomach for getting too close. Lu Han shoots him a warning look: _Not now._ Junmyeon pushes past Baekhyun and Zitao to crouch down next to Yixing.

When the ambulance arrives and Yixing's loaded in the back, Kris argues with Brodsky: "I'm going too," he says firmly. "Until his parents are contacted. I'm—he's my responsibility. And I can translate."

Brodsky's not wild about the idea. "Your studies—"

"—can wait." Kris hoists himself into the back of the ambulance and the discussion's over. Zitao's agape at the brazen way Kris speaks to Brodsky, the assertive way he stares him down as the paramedic pulls the door closed. The siren's audible even after it reaches the end of the driveway and turns, yellow truck wobbling gently down the unpaved road before it disappears behind a patch of trees.

"Back to breakfast," Cermak bellows, clapping his hands together. The sharp crack echoes through the foyer. "There will be no excuse for students who arrive late to class. _Go._ "

The remaining members are thunderstruck and distant when they finally file back in and take their seats at the table again. A painfully silent minute passes between them, then two. Nobody knows what to say.

Jongdae tries, though: "Fuck. Did you see—"

"—yeah," Baekhyun says hoarsely. "Yeah. We _all_ saw." He still hasn't let go of Zitao's hand under the table. "What _happened_ to him? Where's—where'd he come from?"

"Don't react." Kyungsoo takes a moment to compose his face into a neutral expression. "Not here. They're watching us."

Zitao sneaks a glance over Minseok's shoulder. "Holy shit." Every pair of eyes in the dining hall is trained on the prefects' table, agog.

"Exactly." Kyungsoo crumples his napkin and throws it back onto the table. "We need to have a meeting."

"Library?" Lu Han suggests. "After classes are over? Kris might be back with news by then."

 

The meeting's called off when the day's over and Kris still isn't back. He doesn't arrive back at the dormitory until well after dinner's finished and everyone's back in their respective rooms trying to get their studying finished for the evening.

It's not going particularly well. Zitao's read the same sentence in his book twenty times and is no closer to comprehending it. His mind's in a million other places. Baekhyun seems to be just as distracted. He keeps flipping through his economics textbook and reading excerpts out loud to the room until Chanyeol turns around and threatens to feed him the textbook if he doesn't shut the fuck up.

He's been stuck to Zitao's side all day. Even now as he's reading, he's sprawled flat on his back on Zitao's bed like it belongs to him, one foot in the air, the other resting idly against Zitao's thigh. He barely stirs when Sehun knocks on the door and peers in.

"Kris is back. Sent me to come get you—everyone else is already waiting in his room," he mumbles at the floor.

Kris checks the lock on the door twice and squints out of the peephole for an extended beat before he feels comfortable enough to speak to his captive audience. "He's going to be okay."

The group of boys breathes a collective sigh of relief. It had been the burning issue at the front of their minds since seeing the condition Yixing had arrived in that morning. Zitao, for one, still feels queasy when he recalls the dark bruising on Yixing's wrists, the unnatural angle of his wrenched ankle, the sallow, waxy pallor of his face.

"They gave him something for the pain, though, so he's pretty out of it at the moment. He slept the entire time I was there, so I didn't get to ask him anything."

"His dad—?" Minseok asks.

"Arrived just as I left." Kris looks over at Chanyeol, who's been sitting cross-legged on Kris's bed and hugging a pillow to his chest with a troubled expression. "Obviously we still don't know if his father's diplomatic status has anything to do with this yet, but I've been told the _Akademie_ is going to take extra safety precautions until further notice."

Zitao watches as Chanyeol's face falls.

"Where _was_ he, though?" Junmyeon asks, a little despairingly. "Who took him?"

"We don't even know for sure that there _was_ someone," Kris points out. He's hedging. "I wish I knew, but until Yixing feels up to talking about it, we're just going to have to be patient."

Jongdae scowls. "But—"

"That's enough," Lu Han murmurs, putting a hand up to silence him. "Thank you, Kris." He clambers to his feet, dusting his knees off as he announces to the whole room, "Back to your rooms. Kris has had a longer day than we have. Let him sleep."

"No sneaking out tonight, either," Minseok pleads. "Everyone stay on campus and try not to go anywhere alone if you can help it. Just in case."

They've nearly all filed out of the room, grim-faced and still silent, when Kris's voice raises over the procession of boys. "Oh. Hold on. Zitao."

Zitao wings around at the sound of his name, nearly socking Baekhyun in the stomach in the process. "Mmm? Yeah?"

"I—I should tell you, I looked through Yixing's things at the hospital. He didn't have it. I'm sorry. I really don't know where it could be."

Kris doesn't even need to clarify what he means. Zitao nods dumbly. His stomach hurts just thinking about it. He'd had it in his hand—could have made copies, could have refused to let it out of his sight. _Could have done a lot of things._ The last link he had to his father, perhaps the only thing that could have proved he didn't die in a traffic accident. Gone, maybe forever. Just like that.

"I'm sorry, Zitao," Kris repeats, tapping him on the shoulder with an encouraging fist. "We'll keep looking, and when he gets back, we'll ask him. Okay?"

"Okay." Zitao's throat is very dry, the stinging tears like pinpricks behind his eyelids when he blinks hard. _Don't cry,_ he chastises himself furiously. _Don't you dare cry, you baby. Now's not the time._

Thankfully, Chanyeol changes the subject with a curt, "I'll meet you guys back at the room in a little while."

Baekhyun waits until the door to their room is closed tightly behind them before he speaks to Zitao. "Are you okay? Are you going to cry again?" He purses his lips. "Don't cry. We'll find it."

Zitao lets his body drop onto the bed, spread-eagled. "Stop. No, I'm not. I'm glad Yixing's safe. I just—" He sighs heavily. "I know I'm being stupid and it's just a notebook..." He closes his eyes and lets his arms fall against the bedspread in defeat. "I don't know."

He's not expecting the pair of knees crawling on the bed after him to frame his hips, the smooth slide of Baekhyun's mouth against his. He groans quietly and props himself up on his elbows. Baekhyun's practically in his lap at this point. It's too easy to get lost in this—the gentle brush of tongue against his teeth, the warm hands cradling his jaw.

When Zitao comes up for air, Baekhyun's eyes are glassy, blazer hopelessly rumpled by impatient, wandering hands. He sits back on the bed, watching Zitao as he turns to cast a worried look at the door.

"Chanyeol—" Zitao tries. The rest of the sentence gets lost somewhere in his throat.

"He's not going to be back anytime soon." Baekhyun licks his lips, eyes zeroed in on the bow of Zitao's mouth. His Adam's apple bobs heavily as he swallows, index finger tipping Zitao's chin up to meet his gaze.

Zitao's so focused on the gesture that he doesn't even realize there's a hand unzipping his fly until he's already bucking against the tight circle formed by Baekhyun's long, slender fingers. His thumb breaks formation every few strokes to thumb the tip of his dick, already slippery with the first glistening drips of precome. Zitao steals a glance at the unfamiliar sight of his cock in someone else's hands and his hips lift more insistently of their own volition, eager to feel more friction from Baekhyun's palm. It feels _good_ , even lubricated with little more than spit. He already feels the dizzy warmth of imminent release curling in his abdomen, muscles taut with anticipation. He's not an expert on hand jobs that aren't self-administered but he suspects Baekhyun's given more than a few. The way he palms the shaft, fingers twisting down the length like a gentle handshake—he's reading Zitao's body language like he's the easiest code to crack in the world. He approaches him the same way—looks for the patterns, the telltale signs that he's close: the flushed skin of his throat, the sucking, winded breaths his lungs are forcing past his tongue to diffuse in the air between them.

Baekhyun crams their mouths together to swallow Zitao's whimpers when he comes, kissing him slow and steady until his breathing evens out. Afterwards, he rocks back on his heels to look for a place to wipe his hand—a tissue, a handkerchief, _something_. He decides against the duvet cover when Zitao clucks disapprovingly and shakes his head. He ends up licking his palm clean instead, mouth curling cheekily against the salty bitterness. Zitao wrinkles his nose.

"There. Are you feeling any better?" Baekhyun asks, pushing the hair off Zitao's forehead with his clean hand.

Zitao rolls his eyes, the apples of his cheeks flushing bright red as he makes a gesture towards the visibly hard outline of Baekhyun's cock through his trousers. "Should I—I've never—"

"Nah." Baekhyun flips onto his stomach with a satisfied smile. "Not right now. I'll take a raincheck, though."

"I'm—going to clean up," Zitao stutters awkwardly, unsure of what else to say. He's still sticky, an unpleasant combination of saliva and come that pulls at his skin in odd ways as it dries. "Be right back."

Baekhyun gives a noncommittal grunt into Zitao's pillow, his eyelids already sinking and drowsy. _He'll probably be asleep by the time I get back,_ Zitao thinks as he wanders down the hallway towards the bathroom, towel slung over his shoulder. _Which means we won't have to talk about it tonight._ Which is good. Gives him time to think. He's not sure what this means: he worries he's reading more into it than he should be, that he'll be disappointed if he starts to think it's anything more than a tug between friends.

He's interrupted from his thoughts by the sound of sniffling echoing in the empty bathroom. He discovers the culprit immediately. Sehun's perched up on the edge of the counter, legs swinging. He's in the middle of hastily wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt when Zitao rounds the corner.

"Oh." He gulps. "It's you."

"Sehun? What's wrong?" Zitao puts his towel down and steps forward to stand in front of Sehun. He seems so young like this: face bright pink, mouth pulled downward in a deep frown. Considering Sehun's normally stoic demeanor, Zitao hadn't expected to ever find him crying in the bathroom. Sehun's always the first person to deride another for being a coward; now he's the one getting emotional. Unsure of the right thing to do, Zitao settles for cupping a comforting hand around Sehun's knee.

"It's nothing." Sehun sniffs. "Jongin was right. I'm just being an idiot."

"About?" Zitao prompts. "I don't understand."

He shrugs wildly. "I'm just a little scared."

Zitao feels _completely_ lost. "Scared? Scared of what? Yixing's back. He's fine. Everything's going to be okay now."

"I don't know. It feels too soon to tell." Sehun shakes his head. It takes him a moment to compose himself enough to continue. "I don't think it's over yet. I just think—I can't explain it." He laughs through his tears, a wet, choking noise. The next thing he says makes the blood run cold in Zitao's veins. "I just have this awful feeling that Yixing was just the beginning."

✖✖✖

Zitao relates this to Kyungsoo the next morning in the two minutes before Cermak's class is due to start. He leans across the aisle to whisper it, keeping his voice too low for the other students to hear the conversation. A full twenty-four hours later and they're still the topic of conversation: _They're Yixing's friends. I wonder if they know where he was?_ Bolder individuals try for status updates but quickly think better of it the first time Kyungsoo shoots them a chilly, blank stare and ignores the line of questioning completely.

Kyungsoo seems unperturbed. "Sehun's a first year," he says matter-of-factly, as if that explains everything.

"Yeah? And?"

"He's never been away from home before. Not by himself and not for this long. First years are always prone to this type of thing—paranoia, nightmares, you name it. Monsters and secret societies around every corner. You know, the usual childhood things. You can't baby him or he'll never grow out of it."

"What if he's right, though? I mean, _why_ Yixing? Why not Chanyeol? Or you?"

Kyungsoo sighs tersely and busies himself with digging around at the bottom of his satchel for another pencil. "Don't feed into this. We don't even know where Yixing went or what actually happened, yet. I, for one, am not going to jump on any bandwagon until Yixing's awake and talking." Kyungsoo's pragmatic tendencies can be especially infuriating at times. Zitao thinks now is one of those times.

"But—"

"Zitao." Kyungsoo twists in his seat, his dark eyes wide and serious. "Kris said we shouldn't worry until we're given a reason to. He's never steered us wrong. I'm going to put my trust in him and choose to focus on my schoolwork instead. And besides," he says gently, "Kris won't let anything happen to Chanyeol, either. To any of us."

 

Despite this assurance from Kyungsoo, Zitao notices that Sehun still seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown when Kris doesn't show up at the dinner table that evening. Lu Han spoons some rice from his tray into Sehun's soup and gestures for him to eat. "He went back to see Yixing," he explains patiently and Sehun seems mollified enough to take a few hesitant sips of the broth. "He should be back soon."

The mood at the table is far less somber this evening. Minseok's laughing about something with Jongdae, who sounds like he's doing a dramatic re-enactment of a conversation with a classmate from earlier that day. Kyungsoo and Jongin are at the end of the table, Kyungsoo busily explaining an algebra problem to Jongin, who seems more interested in what Jongdae's saying than getting his homework finished. Chanyeol's conspicuous exit ten minutes after he sits down is enough to draw curious stares from everyone except for Baekhyun, who helps himself to the food Chanyeol left behind without comment.

Kris appears just as Minseok's directed Sehun and Jongin to clear the table of everyone's dirty dishes. He rescues a precariously balanced stack of glasses from Sehun's nervous hand and motions for the rest of them to meet him upstairs in his room. He notes Chanyeol's absence with a curious squint and looks to Baekhyun, who shrugs and catches Zitao by the elbow to drag him up the stairs.

Chanyeol still hasn't returned by the time Kris shuffles inside, door swinging closed behind him with a decisive _slam_. "Yixing's awake." He lowers his body into the chair at his desk and exhales tiredly. "His father sent someone by earlier to pick up some fresh clothes and his homework."

"His _homework_?" Sehun scoffs. "You're kidding. If I was in the hospital, I wouldn't want to do any of my homework."

Jongin elbows him. "You don't want to do any of it _now_."

"He specifically requested it." A hint of a smile flirts on Kris's lips. "Guess he really is feeling better."

"Is he coming back?" Junmyeon asks. His hands tremble slightly, voice fraught with anxiety. There's a noticeable hitch when his mouth tightens over the word _back_. He bows his head awkwardly, unable to meet anyone's eyes. He looks like he's on the verge of burning out.

Kris reaches up to put a hand on Junmyeon's shoulder and squeezes it comfortingly. "Yes. He's going to come back."

"Really?" Lu Han looks surprised. "His father's going to allow that? After everything that's happened?"

"If Yixing has his way—which I think he's going to—yeah." Kris shakes Junmyeon until he lets out a nervous giggle. "He and his father were arguing about it when I got there. He said he likes it here, he's not afraid of this place, and he's coming back as soon as the hospital discharges him."

"When?" Jongdae's spine snaps straight with excitement. "Soon?"

"Guys. Don't rush him. It's been a couple days."

"We just want to see him," Kyungsoo mumbles sheepishly. "It's one thing to be _told_ he's okay..."

"I know. Just trust me. He'll be back before you know it."

"You hope," Lu Han corrects. "What if—"

"He will," Kris says, more firmly this time. "I'd bet on it."

Baekhyun's eyebrows lift to his hairline, skeptical. "Does he remember what happened to him at all?"

"Not a lot. Last thing he really remembers is eating breakfast on Sunday." Kris smiles blandly at Minseok. "He seems to recall in excruciating detail the events that led up to you taking the last piece of toast."

Minseok snorts. "Helpful."

"That's what I told him."

"What about the note?" Lu Han asks. "The one we found. Where's the other half? What does it mean?"

"I don't know. I showed it to him." Kris's entire body heaves with a shrug. "He says he definitely wrote it but he's still pretty drugged up on painkillers. I don't think he's operating at full capacity at the moment. He's not really up for much of anything yet."

Lu Han's about to ask _another_ question that Kris probably doesn't have the answer to when Chanyeol comes barrelling in the room, annoyance radiating in every abrupt gesture as he slams the door behind him and rolls his eyes.

"Jesus. Where's the fire?" Baekhyun asks.

"I don't have much time, so I'll make this quick," Chanyeol grumbles. " _Because of recent events,_ Dad's sent a PSS agent here to shadow me. It was the only option that kept me here."

"Shit. What are we going to do about meetings?" Jongdae scratches his head. "Can't really talk about breaking that many rules in front of an agent of the government." He flashes Chanyeol a guilty smile. "Sorry."

"Have them without me," Chanyeol says tiredly. The past few days have clearly taken a toll on him: his defiance is waning, replaced with a passive sort of acceptance that makes Zitao recognize for the first time just how many rules Chanyeol has to abide by every day. "I'm sure I'll still get the highlights from one of you if it's important." He pivots on his heel. "Alright. That's all."

Baekhyun sits up. "Wait, what about—"

"Oh. Yeah. You should—" Chanyeol sighs and presses his fist against his temple. "I'm sorry, Zitao. You can't be in the room anymore."

"What? Why?" Jongdae reaches out to grab Zitao's shoulders protectively. "He just got here. You're kicking him out already? Chanyeol, you _dick_."

"Don't be so dramatic." Chanyeol glowers. "It's not my fucking choice."

"Sure it's not."

"You think I'd voluntarily sign up for some suit to be up my ass just to get the room back?" He _almost_ looks hurt at Jongdae's skepticism.

Baekhyun inserts himself in between the two boys before they come to blows. "Jongdae, it's alright. The agent's got to go somewhere. Chanyeol—relax. Nobody thinks you're doing this on purpose." He turns to face Zitao. "It's okay, right?"

Zitao feels dazed. He'd just started to feel comfortable as the third roommate and now he's faced with the prospect of learning how to live with a completely different set of people. "I—yeah, if that's what has to happen. Where—?"

"Sehun and Jongin's room," Lu Han suggests immediately. "It'll keep you in the same hallway, at least. Should make moving a little easier." Sehun nods and throws an amiable smile in Zitao's direction. Jongin seems less thrilled at the prospect.

"But _hyung_ ," Jongin protests, his voice going nasal with reluctance. "Our room's so small."

"There's enough room for a cot," Baekhyun says dismissively. "It won't be for the rest of the school year. I bet the whole thing blows over in a few days."

"A few days?" Chanyeol shakes his head. "I don't think you realize—"

"Oh, I realize. But I also know you." Baekhyun's entire face crinkles into a smile. "Every time your dad makes you increase your security, you throw a fit until he backs down. I don't think you're going to roll over this time, either."

"Baekhyun—"

"It's decided, then." Minseok claps his hands and rubs them together. "Meeting adjourned so Zitao can move his things across the hall. I'll go find a custodian and see what I can do about getting a cot brought in."

 

Twenty minutes later and Zitao's sitting on the floor of the dorm, Baekhyun kneeling beside him. Chanyeol's PSS Agent had barged in earlier to take stock of the room, some tall guy named Seunghyun who didn't crack a smile when Baekhyun introduced himself as Chanyeol's other body guard. Seunghyun gave Zitao a deadline to vacate the room and disappeared again, muttering something into an intercom hidden up the sleeve of his jacket. Zitao's trying to pack up his books but keeps getting distracted. Baekhyun reaches out to touch Zitao's face, fingers tracing the shell of his ears, down past the muscles of his neck, his shoulders. Zitao ignores the prickling up his spine and stuffs another book into his backpack.

"Sorry you're being evicted." Baekhyun slips his fingers through the spaces between Zitao's. "Won't be for long, though. Chanyeol always gets his way when it comes to his detail. He _hates_ it. He's always fighting with his father about it." He smiles wryly. "Not that I can blame him. He's very good at being a politician's son, but being the _president's_ son... it's unexplored territory. It comes with a lot more restrictions."

This explanation sounds familiar to Zitao. He thinks back to Kyungsoo's advice the first day as Baekhyun echoes the sentiment: "I promise, he's a really funny guy. Great friend, too. He'll have your back for the rest of your life."

"Yours, maybe."

"Yours, too. Give him some time. He's just freaked out."

Zitao's face scrunches in disbelief. "Freaked out? About what?"

"Ever since the election, his dad's been on his case about every little thing. Wants his ten-year-plan set in stone _now._ He's already being pushed to go to law school and Chanyeol _hates_ the idea of that. He wanted to do something with economics instead, but his dad thinks law school makes him a better candidate because that's what _he_ did."

Zitao bites his lower lip. "I didn't know."

"Why would you?" Baekhyun smiles encouragingly. "You weren't at the meetings when he talked about it. And the _marriage thing_ just made him furious—which happened right before you showed up. Unfortunate timing."

"Marriage thing?"

"His dad's already picked out a prospective wife. Someone from a prominent family, chosen because her background best compliments Chanyeol's future trajectory. She's the _perfect fit_ , apparently. Their parents have been negotiating a date."

"Negotiating?" Zitao has trouble keeping the scorn out of his voice. "Marriage isn't a business deal."

Baekhyun laughs softly. "For us it is. Everything we do _matters_ to the investors. The constituents." His hand pauses at the nape of Zitao's neck. His fingers are warm. "Everyone's got a say in how we live our lives. It's for them."

"That's awful."

"I think that's the hardest thing for Chanyeol to accept. He still hasn't, I don't think."

"Why _should_ he? There's nothing else he can do?"

"Yura's great, but she's not going to be the next president. Chanyeol's smart enough, though. He's actually got a shot."

"Yura?"

"Older sister. She's had her heart set on acting since she was a kid, though, and her career is _finally_ going somewhere, so there's no way she'll ever give it up now. Not to mention, their father has been hanging his hopes on Chanyeol since before he could talk. The Park legacy. A family of great men." He says this last part with exaggerated deference, eyes rolling to the ceiling.

"You've been friends a long time, then," Zitao guesses.

"Something like that." Baekhyun shrugs. "We spent a lot of time together growing up. My dad sponsored his dad's campaign back when he was running for governor of Seoul. Lots of playdates. Great photo ops. You know how it is."

"Not really."

"No. I guess you wouldn't." Baekhyun looks amused. "I forgot. But anyway, to answer your question: he's been my best friend for as long as I can remember."

"And how about you?" Zitao asks. It's the first time they've really talked about things less immediate than homework and Yixing. It feels nice. Friendly. Almost intimate. He feels like he's finally getting to know him. "Taking over your father's company, right?"

Baekhyun takes some time to answer this question, lets it hang in the air while he curls up on the rug next to Zitao and makes himself comfortable right there on the floor. "Nah. That's my older brother's thing. He's already being groomed for it. Dad'll probably take an early retirement in a few years." Baekhyun nestles his head against Zitao's leg and sighs. "I'm supposed to go work for him, but it's not—I just really don't know _what_ I want to do yet. I keep telling myself I've got some time to figure it out but it's running out faster than I want it to."

Zitao's taken aback at the sudden bout of raw honesty. Baekhyun's very, very good at glossing over all of the personal details. Zitao's had hour-long conversations with him and walked away realizing he'd gleaned nothing at all about what Baekhyun's _actually_ like. Baekhyun's true talent is making the people around him feel comfortable. It's easy to forget that he's only eighteen, doesn't always take his schoolwork as seriously as he should and suffers from the same self-confidence problems as everyone else. It's all by design, of course: he's hoping if he bluffs hard enough, no one will notice at all.

Zitao slides his hand down Baekhyun's back in slow, comforting circles, the same way his mother used to do for him when he was upset.

"Do you miss him?" Baekhyun asks abruptly. "Your dad, I mean."

The motion of Zitao's hand slows but doesn't stop. "Of course."

"I don't know that I would," Baekhyun says quietly into the fabric of Zitao's trousers. "Does that make me a terrible son?"

Zitao isn't sure if he knows the right answer to that question, so he doesn't say anything at all.

✖✖✖

A few days turns into a week and Baekhyun's confidence in Chanyeol starts to wane. Seunghyun seems to be a permanent fixture in the hallways at SM. Sehun talks in his sleep and Zitao finds it difficult to ignore. He misses his bed.

He also misses Baekhyun—rarely sees him, except for meals and the few times Baekhyun convinces him to skip class so they can grope each other through their uniforms in the library stacks. They still haven't discussed the conversation about Baekhyun's future. Zitao's too timid to bring it up and Baekhyun doesn't seem interested in ever getting an answer to his question.

Still, Zitao doesn't feel lonely, not anymore. It's nearly impossible when Jongin's always begging him to go play basketball on the weekends in the tiny gymnasium. Sehun tags along, elbow linked with Zitao's, chattering about his hyung back home who apparently _isn't as nice as Junmyeon-hyung because he always smacks the back of my head for no reason._ Zitao can probably think of a few—despite the tears, Sehun's hardly the most obedient first year with the way he ignores even the simplest requests made of him by the upperclassmen.

The first snow falls and Zitao marvels at how clean the meadow behind the building looks. Jongdae and Baekhyun catch him looking out the window and drag him outside to throw handfuls of fluffy powder at each other. They're ten minutes late to weekly assembly and soaked to the skin but Zitao feels buoyed by the fresh air, cheeks flushed pink from the cold.

He even reaches an uneasy cease-fire with Chanyeol. Zitao spends a few nights sitting cross-legged on the floor of Kris's dorm room, reading his literature assignments out loud and making corrections to his grammar when prompted. Chanyeol's always there, always rolling his eyes, but it doesn't stop him from getting down on the floor next to Zitao to explain the meaning of a passage that Zitao's been struggling with. Kris watches from his desk and fails to hide his smile behind his fist.

It takes Yixing another two and a half weeks to return to SM, leg encased in plaster halfway up his calf. The Exo Club makes quick work of it, defacing the smooth white surface with the rudest graffiti they can think of in as many languages as they know. He has to wear an oversized sock over it to avoid spending the rest of the school year sitting in detention. He's in good spirits even though he's been reduced to hobbling around on crutches. He keeps his sleeves buttoned at the wrists at Minseok's suggestion to ward off the questions about his fading bruises from nosy classmates. If his father had any remaining reservations about Yixing's safety at the Akademie, they were misplaced. Yixing's flanked by at least one member of the Exo Club at all times—usually Junmyeon, who carries his books under his arm and fusses at him to sit down and rest when his arms start to get sore.

He apologizes to Zitao in between classes the first day, before Zitao's even had a chance to greet him properly and welcome him back. "I'm so sorry about your father's notebook." He shakes his head. "I _know_ I had it. If I could just—"

"Don't." Zitao puts a hand up. He's had time to come to terms with the loss of the notebook and he's almost able to mean it when he says, "It's not a big deal." Then, more sincerely: "I'm just glad you're okay. Besides, there's still a copy of it at home. I'll write and ask."

He writes Tsang. No response, other than the weekly letters he receives from his mother, all variations on a theme: _"Hope you are doing well, we miss you terribly."_ He hadn't told her about Yixing. After his father's death, the last thing Zitao wanted was for his mother to worry for his safety. She'd been through enough.

Meetings of the Exo Club take place at lunch these days. The increased security after Yixing's _incident_ (after the local police hit a dead end in the case, the school refuses to call it anything else) means that every student needs permission to move from one room to another at all times. A new security team is hired and a guard is placed at every entrance. The prefects are expected to strictly enforce the curfew and do periodic checks to make sure everyone's still in their rooms. The strain is wearing on Lu Han and Minseok, who slump into breakfast late every morning, blinking sleepily at the chattering underclassmen without joining the discussions. If they're tired, though, Kris is _exhausted_. He barely makes it to meals anymore. Zitao can't remember the last time he saw Kris eat.

Chanyeol's PSS agent complicates things further. Seunghyun seems hell-bent on driving Chanyeol up a wall. "I'm barely allowed to take a fucking _shower_ by myself," he hisses at Zitao in the bathroom one morning, moments before Seunghyun comes through the swinging door. Zitao spits toothpaste into the sink and escapes before Seunghyun's solemn laser stare burns a hole right through his forehead.

"I've never seen one stick around for this long," Baekhyun confides in Zitao one day. They're skipping third hour, sitting outside to watch the first-years' PE class run laps around the field behind the dormitory. Jongin's towards the front of the pack. He gives a shy wave as he passes.

"Maybe this is more serious than we thought," Zitao suggests. "Maybe he won't go away until they find out who took Yixing."

Baekhyun shakes his head. "Nah. I mean, maybe, but—" He breaks off, barking with laughter as Sehun trips over his own shoelaces and goes sprawling into the grass, an ungainly pile of limbs. He never gets back to what he's saying.

Meals are the only time Chanyeol's given space to breathe. Kyungsoo takes it upon himself to start keeping a makeshift ledger to record the things that happen when Chanyeol's not around, which he cleverly disguises as an ethics notebook. Chanyeol laughs at the transcripts until there are tears in his eyes and smiles gratefully when Kyungsoo encourages him to keep it. Seunghyun watches the table intently from his position in the doorway, occasionally stopping unfamiliar students who seem like they're gravitating towards the president's son without cause.

"It's fucking annoying," Chanyeol complains to the entire table one afternoon. Seunghyun is in the middle of interrogating a new cafeteria worker who's apparently just there to cover for a cook who'd come down with the flu. "I'm not—I don't _care_ anymore. Let them kidnap me." Guilt clouds his face as soon as he realizes what he's said. "Sorry, Yixing, I didn't—"

If it upsets him, Yixing has the good grace not to react. Instead, he smiles: "Don't worry. I left them instructions on which room was yours."

The gaps in Yixing's memory have slowly started to fill in. He remembers being in the bathroom on the first floor, washing his hands at the sink. He tells the police there was one person for sure, but there may have been two. He still couldn't remember where he'd been taken, only that when he woke up his surroundings were unfamiliar and the room was very dusty. He heard voices downstairs a lot, always speaking to each other in rapid Czech. They'd made a mistake in leaving him alone. The way he'd been tied left him with enough motion to work on loosening the knots ("Never thought my sailing lessons would come in handy here at school," he admitted proudly). He'd been the one to break his ankle, albeit unintentionally, when he'd finally gotten his wrists free and launched himself out of the window without checking to see how far he'd have to fall.

( _"Not your brightest moment,"_ Lu Han had said, eyes shuttering. _"You could have fallen on your head."_ The admonishment didn't stop him from hugging Yixing anyway.)

He couldn't remember how far he'd walked or for how long, so trying to trace his steps had proven to be an exercise in futility. They'd hit a dead end. Police conclude it must have been the work of political rivals trying to exert pressure on his father. After the third round of interviews produces the same answers as the first two, they call the case _cold_ and stop coming by.

"Personally, I think it'd be a riot if some tiny woman tried to drag you off into the woods," Jongdae cackles, slapping Chanyeol on the back. "I'd like to see her try."

 

Zitao's surprised at how confident he feels with the material he's been assigned in his classes by the time the end of term exams roll around. Despite everything that had happened during Yixing's disappearance (and subsequent return), he'd managed to keep up on his studies. He lets Kyungsoo quiz him on possible test questions in the library during their free time but it's all just in case: he's ready.

They're sitting at a table near the library desk the week before exams. It's close enough to chat with Minseok and Lu Han, but far enough away that they can pretend to be working when a faculty member passes by to shush them. Baekhyun's even joined in today, although he opts to doodle on Zitao's notebooks instead of actually doing any studying for himself. Lu Han's just mentioned he's staying on campus for Christmas break when the double doors rattle violently. Yixing, still ungraceful in his new walking cast, manages to stick his good foot through the gap in the door before it closes again and limps inside. Zitao jumps up belatedly to hold the door.

"Yixing. What are you doing?" Minseok looks surprised. "I thought you were supposed to be resting?"

"I was," he says impatiently. He leans a hip against the desk to take the weight off his foot. "But I was thinking about our conversation from earlier, then I remembered something. Something Junmyeon was saying. Do you have the book I was using? The one with my note."

"Yes." Minseok retrieves the book from under the desk. "Here."

"What's going on?" Lu Han asks, trying to maneuver Yixing into a chair. Yixing brushes him off.

"I _didn't_ have it with me."

"What?"

"The notebook. Zitao—I didn't lose your father's notebook. Well, I did. But it should be here somewhere. I hid it in here for safekeeping."

Zitao's heart leaps into his throat. "H-here?" he stammers.

"In the library."

" _Where_?"

"That's the thing. That's what the note was. I didn't want to risk losing it, so I was putting together instructions on how to find it again. But with the second page missing, we're going to have to put some time into this."

Baekhyun's face pulls into a deep frown. "Why did you—?"

Yixing's too excited and talks right over Baekhyun. "By any chance... your dad didn't mention anything about a task force, did he?"

"He never mentioned _anything_ about work. My mother never allowed it."

"I hadn't gotten through the notebook yet—but I remember, now. I was coming to find you. I'd figured out the code. I know how he did it." He runs his finger down the inscription he'd left. "Here. This. He cycled through these particular sets of ciphers. Always these seven, always in this order. But he'd start with the first one on the first page, second on the second page, and so on."

" _Jesus_ , that's so involved," Minseok gasps. "Nobody does that by hand anymore. There's software that does that."

"I know. It's just not _done_. That's why it took forever to figure out what he was doing." He looks at Zitao, voice quivering. "There's got to be a reason why he kept a physical record of these things instead of going digital. I ask because this isn't information for a local case, Zitao. Your dad was into something big. Something with international implications."

"Inter— _what_? You said it was about banking." Zitao puts his hands on a table to try and stop the room spinning. "He was just a—he wasn't even—he was just _my dad_ , he wasn't—"

"He was tracking money," Yixing says impressively. His voice drops to a loud whisper. "And I'm certain he was onto something huge. The _amounts_ —I couldn't believe it."

"Money?" Zitao closes his eyes. It takes a beat to register that the hand on his back is Baekhyun's, fingers spread wide between his shoulder blades. "Where?"

"Didn't get that far. But I've got this, so as soon as we find it I can get back to work."

"You should go tell Kris," Baekhyun encourages Zitao with a broad smile. "He'll want to know. We'll get started down here." He pushes him. "Hurry."

Zitao takes the steps two at a time, makes it up to Kris's room completely winded. His muscles are still wobbling from the sudden exertion when he knocks on the door. Someone's in there—he can hear the slight scrape of furniture, thinks he hears beckoning from within, someone's voice saying " _Come_ —" until he pushes the door open and freezes dead in his tracks. He'd heard wrong.

He's taken aback at the sight that greets him: the pile of discarded clothes on the floor, the pale expanse of Kris's back, hunkered down in a crouch against Chanyeol's curled body. Chanyeol's ankles are knotted loosely around Kris's waist and he's making these _noises_ : anxious, whimpering sounds that sound so strange and out of place, so incredibly _vulnerable_ , especially coming from someone normally so brash and confident. Kris bends to whisper something in his ear, something too quiet to catch, but Chanyeol nods eagerly, his eyes screwed tightly shut.

Mortified at his intrusion, Zitao starts a hasty retreat. It's too late, though—Chanyeol senses something, a scuffed sneaker against the polished oak floor, maybe, and opens his eyes just in time to see Zitao pivot on his heel. 

" _Shit,_ " he hisses, scuttling out from underneath Kris backwards like a frightened crab facing an ocean wave. "Fuck. Don't you _knock_?"

"I did—I'm—I'm sorry," Zitao mutters. He can't look either of them in the eye. "I'm— _so_ sorry—"

"Zitao!" Kris calls, but Zitao's already halfway down the hallway. His cheeks are so deeply flushed and burning that when he runs headfirst into Junmyeon, the upperclassman instinctively holds the back of his hand to Zitao's forehead and asks him if he's feeling alright.

"Fine," he says, distracted. He ducks his head away from Junmyeon's hand. He can't take his eyes off Kris's door.

"You look like you've seen a ghost. Are you sure?" Junmyeon's arm drops to his side. "Have you seen Yixing? He was looking for you."

"Yes—I—yes." Zitao swallows. "I'm. Yes. He found me. They're—he thinks the notebook's in the library."

"Really?" Junmyeon looks surprised. "He remembers?" His eyes narrow and he leans forward again. "Zitao, you really don't look well."

"I think I just need to lie down for a while. Could you—they're expecting me back in the library. Could you tell them?"

Hesitantly, Junmyeon bobs his head. "Are you homesick? Upset about the notebook?"

"No. I'm fine. I think I ran too soon after lunch," Zitao fibs. "Don't worry."

He makes it back to the room (empty of Sehun and Jongin, thank fucking God) before he breaks down, sobs racking his chest so hard he holds a pillow up to his face to muffle the sound. He hasn't cried like this since his father died, and even then he hadn't felt this frightened.

He'd seen the tattoo stamped across Kris's bicep, an inky omen.

A fucking _scorpion_. He recognizes it from the cursory research he'd done on the Scorpion Cartel after Tsang had come to see him.

_He's one of them,_ Zitao thinks, panic heaving in his stomach. _He knows. He knows everything about me. Are they on to me? Do they know I'm here? How did they find me? Did they bring me here? I need to leave—I need to call my mother. I need to know she's alright._

He thinks back to the first few conversations he'd ever had with Kris. The little things stick out: the tie, the tissue, the easy platitudes. Zitao feels sick. He'd been played. He walked right into it, trusted Kris without knowing anything about him or where he came from.

_He's affiliated. He's been initiated. He's one of them._

He knows he needs to get out of bed and go downstairs to beg permission to use the phone but he's paralyzed with terror. He is completely alone in a foreign country. His father is dead.

He's pretty fucking sure he's next.

✖✖✖

He tries to skip dinner but Jongin insists and Sehun crawls on top of him and whines until he agrees to get up. He slots himself between the two first years instead of his usual seat next to Baekhyun. Still jittery with nerves, he overcompensates with his hands when he talks to Kyungsoo. He nearly upsets Jongin's water glass twice and inadvertently smacks Sehun in the chest when he's in the middle of relating a story from his childhood. He feels two searing pairs of eyes trained on him as he shovels rice in his mouth and talks without swallowing.

"Hey. Are you going to chew your food at all? What's the rush?" Kyungsoo frowns. "You never came back to the library. Do you want to go back and start looking after dinner?"

"Not tonight. Homework—I need to study," he lies. "Tomorrow, though. We'll look tomorrow."

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow but wisely decides not to push the issue.

When Zitao finally looks down to the other end of the table, he's dismayed to note that he'd been right about the two pairs of eyes. He's half wrong about who they belong to, though. Kris is definitely watching him, mouth slanted in thought while he nods absently at whatever Lu Han’s saying. Chanyeol, though—Chanyeol's laughing at something Jongdae's doing (stuffing forkfuls of the tasteless stew into a juice carton, by the looks of things).

Baekhyun, on the other hand, is staring right at him. He blinks slowly when Zitao offers him a nervous smile but doesn’t return it. There's a fleeting moment of panic where Zitao wonders if he's in on it, too, but Baekhyun looks away and the feeling's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"Help! It's him! Help!"


	4. Chapter 4

Zitao spends the rest of the night lying on his cot with his face buried in the study guide Kyungsoo had written up for the history exam. It's past midnight when he looks up to see Jongin slumped over on his desk, fast asleep. Sehun's in bed, but Zitao laughs when he sees the notebook pillowing his cheek, pencil still clutched between his fingers.

The bathroom's deserted when he goes to take a shower. He listens to the slow drip of a leaking faucet as he pulls off his clothes and steps in the shower stall. The exhaustion is heavy in his bones, but he's still a teenage boy, after all. The warm water hits his body and his hand skims past his dick on his way down to his thighs before it hesitates and returns.

He's so engaged in what he's doing, elbow spring loaded and dragging himself to climax, that he doesn't even realize he's got an audience until Baekhyun clears his throat.

"Hey."

He nearly slips and gives himself a concussion. "Jesus. Baekhyun."

Baekhyun's already naked. He takes a moment to drink in Zitao's appearance, eyes lingering on the jut of his hipbones, the dark line of hair trailing south from his bellybutton.

"Hey," he says again. His voice is hoarse. He doesn't look up.

"What are you doing here?" Zitao huffs, trying to cover himself out of embarrassment. Baekhyun steps into the stall and pulls the curtain closed, fabric slipping out of Zitao's hands.

"I thought maybe you wanted some company."

A thrill runs up Zitao's spine as Baekhyun steps forward, bouncing up on his toes to press his groin firmly into Zitao's. He licks slow, warm kisses into his mouth as casually as one might say hello, soothing hands running down Zitao's arms. It's strange, Zitao thinks, but not an uncomfortable kind of strange—more exciting than anything else. Electricity runs through his veins, circuitry directing every twinge straight to his dick. Baekhyun's already hard, too, whimpering quietly into the back of Zitao's throat as Zitao lets his hand brush up against their mirrored erections to push them together.

Everybody else is always asleep at this hour—and Zitao is thankful, because he's too amped up to be able to stop. His head drops against the side of Baekhyun's face, teeth nipping down his jawline, pressing his nose into the heat of Baekhyun's throat to suck a bruise so large it's obscene. _There's no way he'll be able to hide that one_ , Zitao realizes belatedly. His breathing is so rushed he worries for a second that someone passing by in the hallway might be able to hear it over the noise of the shower.

Baekhyun turns Zitao around and pushes him against the wall, running his hands down the lines of his back like a sculptor admiring his creation. He lathers his hands with the conditioner Zitao'd been using to masturbate with, stopping to pause between the muscled flesh of Zitao's thighs, which he soaps up generously before he slides his cock between them. Zitao gasps a little at the sensation, Baekhyun's hands braced on his hips as he rocks back and thrusts, fingernails digging pink crescents into the smooth pale skin. Zitao wraps his hand around his own dick, pulling out of time against Baekhyun's breathy grunts. His knees knock painfully against the marble wall of the shower under the weight of Baekhyun's body. Baekhyun comes with a gravelly sigh, forehead nestled between Tao's shoulder blades. Come dribbles down the inside of Tao's thighs as Baekhyun skims his hands over Tao's to help coax him the rest of the way to completion.

"Where'd you go earlier tonight?" Baekhyun asks after their breathing steadies. Zitao shrugs, running shampoo through to the tips of Baekhyun's hair, slow fingers massaging suds into his scalp.

"When?" Zitao asks, feigning ignorance.

"Before dinner. You were supposed to come back." Baekhyun squints. "You forgot? It's the only thing you've been talking about for weeks."

"Wasn't feeling well."

Baekhyun tips his head back into the stream of water to rinse his hair clean. "Remember," he says as they're getting out, both wrapped in towels, bodies dripping water on the tiled floor. "Dad's in business, Chanyeol's in politics. I've grown up around the best liars in the world. You're going to have to try harder to get one past me."

Zitao's shoulders hunch defensively. "I'm not lying."

"Okay." Baekhyun laughs and thumbs a drop of water from Zitao's cheek. "You can trust me, you know. It might be something I can help you with." He pauses at the sink on his way out, eyes trained on Zitao's blurred reflection in the foggy mirror. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah," Zitao says weakly, putting his toothbrush under the running tap. He hopes he makes it that long. "Tomorrow."

✖✖✖

Predictably, Zitao is denied use of the phone when he visits the office the next day. He can't tell them why he needs to call his mother, that he's at school with a killer from the same cartel who probably orchestrated his father's death. It sounds so implausible he almost wonders if he'd imagined what he saw yesterday. He sits outside of Brodsky's office for a while, fists pulling at his hair in panicked frustration until he's calm enough to brave the hallways.

Kris doesn't show up for breakfast. Zitao keeps one eye trained on the empty chair, feeling ill at ease. If the others are concerned they don't show it. The absence of prefects isn't an anomaly these days—they're constantly being summoned to the office to talk to Brodsky. The meetings are always about minor incidents outlined in their reports, stupid shit like a window left open in the bathroom, a first year caught sneaking back inside after a dare.

He doesn't show up for lunch, either, and Zitao feels a vague sense of relief. _Maybe the embarrassment of being caught is keeping him away,_ Zitao thinks, although Chanyeol seems more comfortable pretending that it never happened. He seems content to avoid eye contact with Zitao and laughs louder than is warranted or necessary at an impression of Malcom that Baekhyun's performing for the entire table.

Not that the sex is what's bothering Zitao. If it were any other time, he'd be embarrassed and more than a little surprised (he hadn't noticed the telltale signs—but now that he knows, a lot of things make more sense to him). He's too busy thinking about the ominous black mark on Kris's bicep. The scorpion, tail coiled and ready to strike. _Assassin,_ he thinks. _I need to go home._ He debates doing something to get enough demerits to be expelled and sent home that day but remembers belatedly that he can't leave until he finds his father's notebook. According to Yixing, it's still somewhere in the building. It's the only thing that can answer his questions about what really happened.

They search the library in shifts in between classes, one shelf at a time. The process is painstakingly dull. Lu Han insists on doing it properly, leaving no stone (or encyclopedia) unturned. Yixing sits at the circulation desk and calls out things like _no, not there_ or _haven't been down that aisle since second year_ which aren't particularly helpful.

They're still looking for it when dinnertime rolls around. Junmyeon's long-since escorted Yixing back up to the room to get some sleep. Jongin and Jongdae have moved onto the reference section, carefully pulling books out by the armful to search for the notebook. Three aisles over, Sehun's sitting cross-legged on the floor underneath Baekhyun, who keeps yanking books from a shelf almost too high for him to reach and handing them off, three at a time.

"Anything?" Zitao asks. He's cautiously hopeful. If Yixing's adamant he hid the notebook here, they've got to be running out of places to search.

"We're about halfway through. Nothing yet, but you know Yixing. He probably picked somewhere stupidly obvious, which means it'll be the last place we check." Lu Han pushes his glasses back up his nose. His tie is still in a crisp knot under his chin even though he's got to be heading into his thirteenth hour of wearing his uniform. Minseok's dozing in the chair next to him, occasionally jerking awake to murmur an agreement before he drifts off again. "Leave him," Lu Han whispers when Jongdae tries to shake him. "He's been searching the stacks with me all day."

Kyungsoo comes by with sandwiches he's stolen from the dining hall, pockets full of crumbs. He distributes them wrapped in the nice cloth napkins that aren't supposed to leave the table.

"So. Where are we?" Baekhyun asks the group after he's abandoned Sehun to put all the books back on the shelf by himself. He's sweaty and disheveled, shirt unbuttoned at the collar.

Minseok's awake now, systematically dissecting the sandwich Lu Han had set aside for him to remove the tomato. "Exactly where we were before."

It feels hopeless. There are too many books, too many places to look and nothing to go on other than a vague directive from Yixing. _I hid it somewhere in here, I know it._

"I'm beginning to think he's remembering something that didn't actually happen," Kyungsoo confesses. "He wanted to find it so badly for you, Zitao... Maybe he's convinced himself of something that isn't true."

Zitao can't bring himself to nod. Yixing had seemed so sure. "I want to keep looking," he says finally. "Just to be sure."

Jongdae shakes his head. "I don't know, Zitao. There are so many shelves... even if he did hide it here, we don't have any way of knowing that it's still here. Who knows if somebody found it and took it. Little leather notebook full of cool symbols? I know I'd probably steal that." The weight of his hand feels immense on Zitao's shoulder. "Sorry."

The door cracks open and Chanyeol manages to squeeze through a gap barely big enough to fit a person. He leans against the door heavily, face shiny with perspiration. He's been running. "Hi," he wheezes. "Glad you guys are still here."

"Where's Seunghyun?" Baekhyun snorts. "Don't tell me you've finally talked your dad into getting rid of him. Took you long enough."

"No such luck," he pants. "I ditched him on the third floor. He thinks I'm in the bathroom. He'll figure it out eventually. Look, I just—have you guys seen Kris at all today? Because I haven't. He's not in his room, either."

"Common room?" Baekhyun asks, sliding off the table. "Don't worry. I'm sure he's around here somewhere."

"That's what I'm trying to say—I don't think he is. He's not on campus right now. He didn't say anything to me about going anywhere. I'm worried."

Every muscle in Zitao's body goes rigid with fear. _Fuck. He's telling them where I am. He's bringing someone back to finish the job._ "Fuck," he croaks aloud before he can stop himself.

"You alright?" Concern radiates off Baekhyun. He almost puts his arm around Zitao but seems to think better of it when he remembers they're not alone. "I'm sure he's okay—Zitao? You look like you're going to throw up."

His vision vignettes at the edges, tunnelling into black. The last thing he remembers is a warm, tingling feeling in his face and Baekhyun shouting: _"Shit. Somebody. Help. He's going to—"_

 

When Zitao wakes up, he's in Baekhyun's bed. He recognizes his smell on the sheets, the soft brushed cotton duvet against his skin. There are voices murmuring over him. He hears Baekhyun's throaty whispering and tunes in just in time to hear him say, _"—fucking fainted, can you believe it? I've never seen anything like it—"_ A cold washcloth dabs at his temple. He flinches.

"He moved. He's coming around," notes a voice that sounds a lot like Jongdae's. "Zitao? Can you hear us?"

"You should have taken him to the infirmary." Chanyeol's smooth bass. "He can't stay here forever. Seunghyun's going to come back eventually and if he can't get in the room—"

Zitao's eyes flutter groggily, struggling to focus on the faces swimming in front of him. Everyone's just slightly out of focus, blurred and distorted like they're underwater. The back of his head throbs.

"Hm?" He manages. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, feels like lead and tastes metallic— _did I bite it?_ He tests it gently against the back of his teeth and can't stop himself from wincing. It hurts. Everything hurts.

"Does he have a concussion?" Jongdae pulls back Zitao's eyelids and squints pensively. "How do you tell if someone's got a concussion?"

"Guys. Give him some room," Baekhyun commands. "Look. He's okay."

"I'm fine." Zitao rolls away from Jongdae's poking and prodding and ends up doing a faceplant into Baekhyun's lap. Baekhyun chuckles.

"Nice of you to offer, but maybe later."

"Baekhyun," Chanyeol warns. "Not now. Seunghyun's going to be back any minute." He crouches over Zitao, mouth set in a hard line. "Can you walk? We need to get you back to your room. If Seunghyun—"

"I'll go buy you some time." Jongdae sighs. "God, Chanyeol. Don't rush him."

Chanyeol's glare is lost on Jongdae when he doesn't bother to look over his shoulder before he retreats into the hall. Zitao struggles to sit up but doesn't quite manage it until Baekhyun hooks an arm around his waist and pulls him into a seated position.

"Thanks," Zitao mutters, rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry. Thank you."

"What happened?" Baekhyun asks, shaking his head. "I've never seen anyone go down that hard. It was scary."

"Nothing. Just felt weird all of a sudden."

Baekhyun gives him that look again, the one from the bathroom that says _bullshit, I know you're lying to me right now._ "Don't give me any shit about skipping dinner. I watched you eat your sandwich and half of Sehun's. What's going on, Zitao?" He grabs at Zitao's wrist. "I'm not letting you leave until you tell me. You've been weird since yesterday."

Chanyeol coughs and turns to look out the window. Baekhyun looks up at the sudden noise.

"Chanyeol? Do you know what's going on?"

He shrugs. The dim light from the lamp casts long shadows on his face. "How would I know? I don't really see anybody these days."

"What the fuck," Baekhyun snaps testily, tossing the rag in his hand to the floor. "I thought we agreed we were going to stop keeping shit from each other. Especially after Yixing. Fuck you guys."

"Where's Kris?" Zitao asks, choosing to ignore Baekhyun's sulking for more pressing issues. The missing cartel member. The notebook. "Did he come back?"

"No. He's still missing." Chanyeol's shoulders draw up to his ears. "Why?"

Zitao sways again. Baekhyun's already-outstretched hands catch him before he topples off the bed.

"Jesus—"

"You have to find him." Zitao's mouth is dry. He keep swallowing and coughing. The way his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth feels like he's eaten an entire field of cotton. He tries to stand up but his vision explodes into dizzy static from the headrush. "You have to find him now. He's—going to kill—we're not safe, we have to—"

"Whoa. Calm down." Baekhyun pulls Zitao back down and tethers him there by the elbow. "Kill? We're not safe? Speak slowly. You're not making any sense—"

"How _dare_ you," Chanyeol hisses, crossing the room in three long strides. Zitao's never seen him move this fast before. "You fucking _prick_. After everything he's done for you, you have the nerve to say that shit? He could be tied up somewhere. You saw what happened to Yixing—think he deserves that? Huh? Do you?"

Baekhyun's eyes are wide with fright. "What's going on? What am I missing?"

"I saw the tattoo!" Zitao wails, cheeks damp. "I saw the scorpion on his arm. I know what that means. He's one of them."

"One of who?" Baekhyun tugs at his sleeve. "Zitao, I don't underst—"

"Shut up, just fucking shut up. You think that was his choice? You think he wanted it?" Chanyeol shoves Zitao backwards a little bit and stands back, hands balled into tight fists. "Why the fuck do you think he doesn't go by Yifan in the first place—"

"Yifan?" Zitao says faintly, distrustful of his ears. "His name's Yifan? Not Kris?" The bottom drops out of his stomach like he's just overbalanced over the edge of a very tall cliff. He puts his head in his hands. "He—scorpion—killed my father," he blubbers in between choking breaths. He feels another panic attack coming on, Tsang's voice ringing in his ears: "I wouldn't put it past them to send a kid to do their dirty work. They're cold, Zitao. Ruthless."

Chanyeol's fist winds up to hit him. It takes both of Baekhyun's hands to intercept it and hold it steady.

"Hold on, you two. What the fuck just happened? I need to know what's going on and I need to know right now."

"Not everyone has an unrealistic hero-worship complex about their father, asshole," Chanyeol seethes, yanking his hand away from Baekhyun's grasp. "They haven't seen each other in years. He lives with his mother in Canada. Which you'd fucking know if you bothered to ask."

"Come on, Chanyeol. How would he know? Nobody talks about it. I don't even think the school knows." He puts a hand on Zitao's back. "You think they'd let you near him if they did? With your protection detail?"

"Why would he fucking kill your dad, anyway?" Chanyeol presses, sneering. "What did he do to get himself killed? Corrupt? On the take?"

Baekhyun seizes the nearest sneaker on the floor and flings it across the room in anger. "Chanyeol. Stop it right now, I'm warning you."

"Get him out of here, Baekhyun. I'm serious." The desk chair clatters noisily under Chanyeol's weight. "If I have to look at him again I'm going to punch him. You won't be able to stop me this time. "

 

It takes Zitao the better part of an hour to calm down. Baekhyun sits him on the edge of the cot and holds his hands, nuzzling his face into Zitao's shoulder and whispering it's okay until Zitao stops shuddering every time he tries to take a deep breath.

"Whatever you're thinking about Kris right now—don't," Baekhyun murmurs, raking his fingers through the short hair at the nape of Zitao's neck. "I don't know where you got your information, but it's wrong. They're estranged. He doesn't like to talk about it."

Zitao tries to tell him the whole story. All that comes out is a soft whimper.

The doorknob rattles. Baekhyun lets his hands slip back into his lap, putting a safe distance between them. They're both expecting to see Sehun or Jongin. Zitao scrubs at his face with the heel of his hand although he's been crying for so long that it's fruitless to try and disguise it. He's downright startled to see Kris silhouetted in the doorframe. He's bundled up in a heavy woolen peacoat, a pair of leather gloves jammed haphazardly in his pockets.

"Kris. Shit. You scared me, hyung," Baekhyun grumbles.

"Sorry. Hi, Baekhyun." He beckons. "Zitao. Come with me. I need your help."

Baekhyun's forehead puckers apprehensively. "Where have you been all day? Chanyeol was worried out of his damn mind."

"I know." Kris sinks his teeth into his lower lip and bites. His face is drawn, eyes weary. It looks like he hasn't slept in a week. "I just came from your room. He told me. About earlier." He scuffs his toe against the floorboards. "We should probably talk about that later."

Zitao shrinks back into Baekhyun's side. "Why do you need my help?"

"Do you trust me?"

Zitao is silent.

"He's safe, Zitao," Baekhyun says gently. "I'd trust him with my life." Then, to Kris: "What's going on? Is it something I can help you with?"

Kris shakes his head. "It has to be Zitao." He crooks his finger. "If we leave now, we'll be back by sunrise. No one will know we ever left."

Zitao squints. Kris— _Yifan_ , whatever his name is—he doesn't look like a killer. He looks like your average student. His sneakers are crusty with dried mud he's probably tracked down the entire length of the hallway. He's got at least an inch of dark root growth in his mop of blonde hair. He's picking at his cuticles anxiously as Zitao watches him. _Assassins don't have muddy sneakers or nervous tics,_ he decides, rising on wobbly knees. Kris hasn't ever given him a reason to doubt his sincerity. Baekhyun trusts him, too. There's something going on and his father's death is definitely connected. He's got nothing else to lose.

"I should go, too." Baekhyun catches at Zitao's hand. A flicker of something crosses through Kris's eyes before it's gone again.

"If Chanyeol's roommate goes missing, you know Seunghyun will have Brodsky and the entire world on high alert by morning. We can't afford to risk it, Baekhyun. You need to cover for us. Let the others know not to worry."

"By morning," Baekhyun agrees reluctantly, a fierce look in his eyes. "Or I'm coming to look for you guys myself."

 

Kris doesn't speak much after that. He barely waits for Zitao to pull on a coat and some shoes before he's dragging him down through the kitchen and out a service entrance. _This is how they snuck out before,_ Zitao realizes. _That's one mystery solved._ They leave deep footprints in the fresh snow blanketing the property, two sets of footprints trailing side by side all the way down the drive.

The truck is idling a kilometer or so down the road, pulled underneath a large tree with its lights off. Kris holds the door open and leans in to murmur, "Don't say a word. I think he understands more than he lets on. I told him we've got girlfriends in town."

Zitao nods and clambers in, settles next to the old man who wheezes a gruff _ahoj_ before putting the truck into reverse. They plunge into complete darkness for a while, Zitao gripping at Kris's hand with white knuckles as they fishtail crazily through an especially tall drift and onto the main road. The driver doesn't flick the headlights on until they're safely past the school gates and on their way.

Zitao clutches at Kris's hand for a few more kilometers until he's positive they're not going to die and his grip loosens, one tentative finger at a time. Kris nudges him encouragingly and offers him a tiny smile, face illuminated by the silvery light coming through the windshield. _Assassins don't hold people's hands,_ he decides. _Assassins don't smile like that._ Zitao doesn't know what it's like to have a sibling but he thinks Kris feels pretty close to an older brother with the way he tries to protect the rest of the Exo Club.

Still. The tattoo.

_"We need to talk,"_ he'd said. And Baekhyun: _"I'd trust him with my life."_ He's trusting Kris because he trusts Baekhyun.

He stops spacing out long enough to look at the clock in the dashboard. It feels like it's been hours. It hasn't even been one. Forty minutes of throttling speed over slick, unpaved roads. The canopy of trees provides cover from— _from what_? Zitao wonders, realizing he's felt watched since the moment he arrived on campus. He looks up at Kris, watches his fingers running along the edge of the seat. _How is everything connected? Yixing. Dad. The notebook. Kris. It means something._

The truck stops.

Kris hops out and rattles off a few things in Czech that Zitao barely understands—thank you, maybe? wait for us here? And then they're standing by the roadside in a snowbank as the tail lights blink goodbye and disappear.

"Alright." Kris rubs his hands together. "We've still got to go a little further. You okay? Awake?" He glances down at Zitao who's already shivering, ankle-deep in snow. "Shit. I'm sorry—I was in such a hurry to leave. You don't even have gloves, do you?"

"I'm fine," Zitao manages through chattering teeth. He's really not. "Let's keep moving. How far?"

"Not far. Maybe half a mile. I had him drop us off right on the outskirts of town. We need to hurry." He pulls his gloves out of his pocket and blows into them before handing them off to Zitao. "He'll be back in an hour or so. Here, put these on."

"But—"

"Just do it. I've got deep pockets. I'll be fine."

The crunch of their footsteps echoes loudly, makes it sound like there's a dozen boys instead of just two. It's a struggle to keep pace with Kris who seems to be taking one step for every three of Zitao's. When Zitao looks up at the sky he stops dead in his tracks, mouth agape. He's used to the hazy light pollution of the city. He's never seen so many stars in one place before.

"Zitao?" Kris tugs at his sleeve, interrupting his trance. "There's no time."

They round a snowy copse of trees and there's the village. Tiny windows flicker cozily with light from within and Zitao suddenly wishes he were back in bed, ankle hooked around Baekhyun's, pulling him close to steal his body heat. The skyline is punctuated by a few rising smokestacks in the distance and the imposing profile of a cathedral against the moon. Kris buries his hands deeper into his sleeves and sighs visibly into the silence.

"There. That's where we're going," he mutters finally, pulling off his scarf to loop it around Zitao's neck. "It's cold. Take this, you still look like you're freezing."

"I don't—"

"Just wear it. It's my fault, dragging you out in the middle of the night." He grins. It's the first time Zitao's seen Kris smile properly all evening. "We're almost there, anyway."

The church is cold and dank. It smells of mold and aged paper, burned incense and snuffed candles. Kris weaves through the pews and disappears through a tiny door. He emerges a moment later, finger pressed to his lips as he gestures for Zitao to follow him.

The sacristy is spooky without the benefit of electric lights. It's hard to tell if they're alone when the room is so dark that an entire army could hide in the deep shadows, completely undetected. Zitao moves to search the wall for a switch but Kris calls him off with a warning grunt that says we can't let anyone know we're here and pulls a small flashlight from his coat pocket.

"I know it's around—here," Kris breathes, speaking so softly it's mostly air, no tone. "Hold the carpet back for me."

Obediently, Zitao crouches near the beam of Kris's flashlight. The outline of a door cut in the planks blooms into view under the gloomy orange beam of the torch.

"What's that?"

Kris doesn't answer until he's hooked a finger underneath the edge and pried it open. "If I'm right—" He stops, face falling when the flashlight bounces off what amounts to an empty crevice under the floorboards. "Shit."

Zitao tries again. "What?"

Kris shakes his head and gently sets the door back into place with his fingertips. "They've been here. Damn it."

"They?" Zitao yanks at Kris's sleeve. "Who's they? What's here?"

Kris sits back against the wall and turns the flashlight off. "I'm sorry, Zitao... I really should have finished my business instead of dragging you into this. Damn it," he says again. "I—I think I found where they were keeping Yixing earlier today."

"It's too small for a person in there," Zitao says dumbly. Kris snorts.

"Not here. In town, though. I found a glassmaker who was willing to talk to me. This was something else." He sighs. "We're really working blind until we find your father's notebook."

"Why?" Zitao's muscles stiffen at the mention of the notebook. "What's in Dad's notebook that could possibly have anything to do with Yixing?" He asks, voice raising loudly enough that Kris silences him with a palm across his mouth.

"You need to be quiet or we're going to be caught." Kris waits until Zitao nods before he removes his hand. "It's more complicated than just Yixing. I—to be honest, I don't have all the pieces yet." He flashes the light at his wristwatch. "We've got fifteen minutes or so before we need to walk back to the road. Do you—can I—I'm just going to talk, okay? Because I know—I know you found out. About my dad. And I'm sorry, because it wasn't—I don't—it wasn't the way I wanted you to find out. It just never seemed like a good time to bring it up."

It's already cold in the church but suddenly Zitao's got the shakes, muscles quivering anxiously. We should talk. Here it is. "Is it true?" he asks, voice like sandpaper.

"Yes—" The wind picks up outside, an eerie whistle that shrieks past for a moment before dying down again. "—and no."

"I don't understand."

"He is my father. But—I'm not like him. I have no interest in being like him. I know he exists in a morally grey area that a lot of people aren't comfortable with."

"He's a criminal."

"He's done things that can be seen as criminal, yes. But I—" Kris takes a slow breath that nearly sucks all of the air out of the room. "Your father liked him, Zitao. By all accounts, they were close. Knowing my father, I don't know how true that is, obviously, but."

Zitao struggles to process the information he's just been given. "They knew each other? But how—" He closes his eyes. "Was Chanyeol right? Was my dad corrupt?" he whispers. His voice is very small, childish.

"There are degrees of wrong," Kris says, pausing when Zitao flinches. "In short, no. But it's a longer story than that, and there are details I'm not clear on." He waits for Zitao to say something.

Zitao stays silent, chewing on his lower lip sullenly.

"He _wasn't_." Kris nudges Zitao with his foot, voice soft. "He was trying to help. Yixing was right about the task force. Nobody knew—it was hush-hush. International organization working to clean up the underworld, sort of." He swallows. "He wasn't the first, you know. To be killed."

Zitao looks up. "So he was—?"

"Yeah." Kris closes his eyes. "Since it was formed, he's the fourth member. There have been rumored hits out on at least half a dozen other members of the task force as well as their families." He swallows, his voice wavering when he says, "President Park is one."

It clicks. "Chanyeol," Zitao breathes.

Kris confirms with a curt nod. "You, too."

"Isn't your dad—wouldn't he—?"

"He'd agreed to work as a confidential informant in exchange for immunity and a change in identity when it was all over." Kris shrugs, an annoyed gesture that flings his hands into his lap. "He's getting old, he says. And since I'm not willing to take over the family business... he's been thinking about retiring."

"What happened—the case my dad was working on—does anybody else—do they know he was killed?" Zitao fumbles miserably. He wants to know everything but can't even figure out how to phrase the questions that have been bouncing around his head for months. "I tried to tell his partner, but he thought I was just being a baby."

"The task force knows. My father's as eager to get the notebook back as you are. He thought the information was lost forever. It'd taken months to cultivate that many witnesses willing to testify against the Red Hand. Your father had finally, finally found someone whose testimony was going to break the whole case wide open. No one was willing to talk unless we agreed to relocate them. That's why we need the notebook. I don't think we'll be able to shake another one out of the bushes."

"Can't you just ask the original witnesses again?"

"If the witnesses' identity weren't also in the notebook, then we could have tried. As it is..."

"We're stuck," Zitao murmurs, finishing Kris's sentence for him. "But why my dad? Why here? This is—he worked as a detective. He never spent a lot of time overseas—"

"That I'm not sure of. Only that there had been a lot of suspicious activity between the organized crime syndicate in your district and one in Seoul. There's a splinter group there called the Red Hand that's been funnelling money into supporting candidates that—let's say turn a blind eye to their activities. President Park campaigned on breaking up rackets like this. I'm fairly sure he was in contact with your father, but I don't know who initiated it. There was someone on the inside—they suspected a councilman, I think? He'd set up a front in a dry cleaners'. But there was someone else helping out. Since he was so close, your dad was in charge of tracking the money and figuring out who that could be."

Zitao's head spins. He rubs at his temples wearily. "This sounds like a movie."

"Real life's a lot more fucked up," Kris says quietly. "In real life, the good guys die."

There's a long pause. Zitao can hear the scuttling of a mouse somewhere in the rafters of the church. He flinches. The skittering of toenails on wood sends repulsed shivers up his arms. He speaks to drown out the sound. "But what does that have to do with Yixing? We're thousands of kilometers away from home."

"You don't keep up on international crime news, do you?" Kris chuckles. It's a rhetorical question. "The Czech Republic's become a very popular tax shelter these days. Off-shore accounts are a fad of the last century. If you're trying to hide money, that's the first place the authorities are going to look." He gestures at the room around them to prove a point. "Better to hide your money in a town that's eight hundred years old where the buildings are still made out of brick."

"President Park?"

"He's been in the news three times this year alone for pushing back at the EU for housing organizations that fund known terrorist groups. Unfortunately for him, the Red Hand launders and deposits their money in amber and chess sets.

Zitao snorts. "What?"

"Drugs are a little risky lately. Profit margin isn't worth it, considering how many other gang leaders have gone to jail on drug-related charges. They've been skimming money from the government by selling counterfeit cigarettes without paying the taxes on them and then moving the money here to invest it, if you know what I mean. Not a bad plan if you're loking to get rich—tobacco's a billion dollar business no matter which currency you're dealing in."

"Cigarettes," Zitao breathes. _Of course. It all makes sense now._ "My dad had figured that part out—I saw that. Written in the back."

"They've gotten smart after the drug arrests. Laundering's a lot harder to prove, especially when most of these transactions are taking place off the grid. Keeping things old-school. It's harder to track a load of money in a cart pulled by a donkey than it is to follow a digital footprint of funds being wired it halfway across the world. They got smart. They deal in cash only."

"So wherever Yixing was being kept—that's where the money is?"

"Not quite. It was supposed to be here, according to to the glassmaker I talked to. He said they're always coming and going." He flips his hand at the carpet, clearly annoyed. "But they've moved it."

"Is it still here somewhere? Maybe it's—we should look for other trap doors."

Kris shakes his head. "Nah. They might've said something about a church in front of Yixing. Too bad he doesn't understand Czech." He sighs. "It's long gone."

"What do we do now, then?"

"We go back to campus. And we keep an eye on Chanyeol—I have a terrible feeling that whoever kidnapped Yixing would have preferred to get their hands on him instead." He shoots Zitao a look. "I'm sure you've been curious about who sent you to SM in the first place."

Zitao frowns. "Yeah—how did you—?"

"My father arranged for it," Kris says simply. "You're safer here with me." He nearly smiles. "He also felt like he owed your father a debt. He's never said it, but I think he feels partly responsible."

"Responsible?"

"He usually hears about these things. Before they happen. He's got—connections—ears to the ground—but he hadn't considered the possibility—"

Realization sinks in. "Fuck." Zitao moves to stand up. Kris grabs him by the elbow to stop him. "My grandparents, my mom—"

"They're safe. They don't know anything, either, so they're of no use. But my father's got someone watching them just in case."

Zitao sinks back into a kneel. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything." He shifts awkwardly. "I'm just sorry about your father. I know it's all a consolation prize."

"And Chanyeol? You watch out for him, too?" He wants to ask more, but the questions weigh heavy on his tongue. He can't bring himself to shake them loose.

"Mostly by coincidence. Mom sent me here—on Dad's dime, of course—to get away from Dad's reputation. To—I don't know, _be normal_ , I guess." He laughs hollowly. "Although I don't know if this counts as normal, honestly."

"It doesn't," Zitao replies, a little too quickly. Kris ruffles his hair and continues.

"When he contacted me for the first time about Chanyeol a year ago, it was the first time we'd spoken in nearly six years. It was also an accident that Chanyeol and I had already become friends." He says _friends_ in an odd, flat voice, like he's trying not to imply anything else by it. "Dad wants me to stop. Us. Us to stop. Thinks I'll ruin his future." He shrugs. "He's probably right. Chanyeol's too young. A scandal with a gangster's son? It'll effectively end his career in politics before he's even had a chance."

"You're young, too," Zitao says, even though he knows Kris didn't mean it like that.

"Yeah. I know." Kris sighs and rubs his palms against his knees. Another nervous habit. "I know."

Zitao isn't sure if he should ask this next question but he finds he can't stop himself. "Do you talk to your dad often, now?"

Kris stiffens. "Not... all that often, no. Usually only my birthday. Or if there's something serious."

"That's it?"

"That's enough."

Zitao exhales slowly through pursed lips. "It's just—if my dad was still around—"

"Please don't finish that thought," Kris says tightly. "I'm—I'm sorry, Zitao. I know it sounds like I'm taking it for granted, but... my father isn't the same type of man that your father was." When he smiles it's not in his eyes, all teeth and overcompensation. "Sometimes you're better off."

Zitao develops a sudden preoccupation with the carpet. He takes his time raking his fingers through the tufted strands before murmuring, "I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Well. Dad sent you here so I could keep an eye on you, and that's what I'm going to do," Kris says quietly. "He doesn't ask much of me these days. This—these things, I'm willing to do."

"For him?"

"For my friends."

After a pause that seems to last an eternity, Kris seems to come to a decision. He stretches the neck of his shirt down past his shoulder. The scorpion's still there, tail coiled and ready to strike. Zitao swallows audibly. His entire face stings as he reaches out with trembling fingers to touch it. Kris's skin is warm and smooth to the touch. _He doesn't feel like a killer,_ Zitao thinks as he traces the blurred edges. The moonlight casts a soft, milky glow over everything.

"I was really young. It wasn't my choice." Kris sighs, tugging his clothes back into place. He doesn't look at Zitao. "I'm sorry. I should have said something before."

Zitao's head bobs heavily. He doesn't trust his voice right now. He feels the ache of unbidden tears in his throat, the dam threatening to break and spill over everything. He's almost suppressed it when Kris wraps his hand around Zitao's wrist.

"I don't know what's going on, Zitao. But I promise you, no matter what, I'm going to be on your side." Zitao nods and Kris squeezes tighter. "I promise."

✖✖✖

It's nearly daybreak when Zitao finally makes it back to his room. They'd run into some trouble sneaking in through the service entrance when the assistant cook had caught them climbing the cellar stairs. Kris had explained something to the cook in rapid-fire Czech, mimed smoking a cigarette, and shook a disapproving finger in Zitao's face. The cook snorted derisively and brushed past the two boys on his way to the cold storage.

"What did you tell him?"

"I caught you smoking. That you've had trouble trying to quit." At this point Kris grinned at the horrified look on Zitao's face. "Don't worry. I also told him that you'd received so many demerits for something that was obviously a struggle. I said that you're in danger of being expelled, so if he could keep it quiet I'd consider it a favor. I always repay favors."

"I don't smoke, though."

"Not anymore, you don't. See you later."

Baekhyun's waiting for him, curled up in the fetal position in Zitao's cot. The blankets are pulled all the way up to his chin, his hair sweaty and cow-licked from sleep. Upon hearing the door clack shut, he throws his arms out in a deep stretch and pulls Zitao into bed against his chest in an uncharacteristic display of concern.

"Zitao?" His tongue is thick with sleep. He doesn't even bother opening his eyes. "You fucking idiot, you're cutting it so close—"

Zitao kisses him. It's mostly to shut him up, but it's also because he might have missed him. Just a little bit.

Baekhyun's lips part against Zitao's for a fraction before he rears back, blinking. "What was that for? Where did you guys go? Did you find it?"

"I'm not even sure what it is," Zitao admits. "I'll let Kris tell you." The crushing exhaustion settles into Zitao's bones with the weight and force of a wrecking ball. "Let me catch a nap before class. I think I'm going to sleep through breakfast."

By now Sehun's awake and sitting upright in bed, hair mussed and sticking straight up. "Hmm?" he blinks. "Hyung? You never went back to your room? What happened? Did—oh, hi Zitao."

"They're back," says Baekhyun.

"What happened? Where were they?" Sehun rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

Baekhyun silences Sehun with a brief headshake. "Don't wake Jongin. Let Zitao get some rest, we'll talk about it later." Reluctantly, Sehun settles himself back against his pillows and rolls over to face the wall.

"Baekhyun?" Zitao whispers. "You won't believe what I found out." His words are garbled, slightly incoherent. He's not sure Baekhyun knows what he's saying.

"Mmm? Go to sleep," Baekhyun urges. "You were out all night."

"Baekhyun," he tries again.

"Don't you have Cermak first thing? He's going to kill you if you fall asleep in class again."

"I won't. Hey, Kris knows about my dad. Our parents were friends. Can you believe that?"

Baekhyun shushes him again.

"I think he might be able to help me figure out what happened."

"Sleep," Baekhyun repeats, letting his chin come to rest on the top of Zitao's head. "I'm not going to talk about it with you until you get some sleep."

Zitao yawns. "I saw his tattoo. He showed it to me."

"Oh?"

"You were right," Zitao murmurs drowsily into Baekhyun's shoulder. "He's safe."

✖✖✖

Zitao is exhausted when the alarm finally drags him out of bed. He trails downstairs to catch the last five minutes of breakfast before heading off to English. Kyungsoo slides his desk closer during the review session and helpfully kicks at Zitao's feet every time his chin starts to sink against his chest. Zitao can feel the searing heat of Cermak's unblinking gaze every time he dares to look up at the board. He feels uneasy, like he's on the verge of getting shouted at for something.

"You okay?" Kyungsoo asks when the bell rings. Zitao slings his bag over his shoulder and shrugs, eyes crinkling into as much of a smile as his tired muscles can manage.

"I'll live."

"What time did you get back on campus? Baekhyun said it was late."

Zitao yawns noisily and holds the door open for Kyungsoo to walk through. "I don't know, I didn't look at the clock before I went to bed."

"You need to be careful," Kyungsoo warns. "It's so much riskier to sneak out now. If one of the security guards had caught you—"

"They didn't, though," Zitao informs him. "We're fine."

They're accosted in the hallway by Minseok and Lu Han. Minseok's got his arms full of books. He looks relieved when he spots them.

"Zitao. Good. You're here."

"Where else would he be?" Kyungsoo laughs, gathering the top half of Minseok's books into his arms to lighten the load. "Wow, hyung, do you really need all these?"

"They're Kris's," Lu Han says, looking distressed. "They pulled him out of the exam review this morning." His eyes are wide and staring over Zitao's shoulder, searching down the hall. "He never came back. I'm worried."

"Meeting before lunch?" Minseok asks, glancing at his wristwatch. "Gymnasium should be empty then. Tell people if you see them."

 

Zitao's shocked to see Chanyeol slinking into the gymnasium alone later that morning. The rest of the Exo Club have already arrived in pairs—Minseok and Lu Han, still slightly frantic with worry, Jongin and Sehun, arguing over the detention they'd both been given by Malcolm for talking in the back of class, Junmyeon and Jongdae, Yixing and Baekhyun. Kyungsoo scoots over on the bench away from Zitao to make room for Baekhyun, who plops down hard on the bench and slings a casual arm around Zitao's shoulders.

"Where's your better half?" Jongdae calls across the room, voice booming in the empty space. Chanyeol wrinkles his nose.

"Seunghyun's outside. I told him I just needed to get something in the locker room, so I can't be here for too long. Keep it down." He glances at Baekhyun and Zitao, lips curling in a faint snarl. "So. What's going on? Where's Kris?"

"I heard the faculty talking—they all know about his dad's mob affiliation now." Minseok grimaces. "Lefebvre even said something about Kris being involved with Yixing's kidnapping."

"Hyung, that's _bullshit_ ," Jongdae snaps. "He would _never_ —"

Lu Han shakes his head. "I know. We—trust me, we all know."

Yixing's rubbing his palms together with enough friction that Zitao's amazed they don't burst into flames. "I hope he doesn't think I believe that."

Minseok shrugs. "Malcolm said you were saying _'no, stop'_ when you were found. Kris was helping you—ergo, you were saying it to Kris."

Yixing raises his eyebrows, taken aback. "I don't remember any of that."

"You know how the faculty is when they get a good piece of gossip, though," Lu Han says. "They're obsessed with the idea of a mob boss's son carrying on the family tradition."

"How did they find out, though? Who else knew?" Chanyeol asks hoarsely. "This is why he didn't want anyone—damn it, Zitao, couldn't you keep your big fucking mouth shut?"

Zitao recoils like he's been slapped. "Me? Why me?"

"I know you two talked." Chanyeol rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "You're the last one to find out and it happens right after somebody told you about his family?" Baekhyun jerks his elbow into Chanyeol's ribs to try and silence him but it's too late. "Cut the innocent shit. I bet you couldn't wait to tell everyone about it—your stupid conspiracy theory about your dad—he was probably drunk. There was no murder, we're chasing after a notebook for no reason—"

"Chanyeol, that's enough," Junmyeon says sharply. "If he said he didn't do it, then I believe him. You don't think we're being watched here? There's something going on. Yixing's kidnapping is connected. We must be getting close to figuring it out if people are trying to get rid of Kris."

Chanyeol scoffs. "You sound just like Zitao, now. Someone's out to get us?"

"Chanyeol," Baekhyun says quietly. "It's not totally out of the question. Stop taking it out on him."

Kyungsoo sidles up next to Chanyeol and slides a hand down his forearm. "Relax, okay? Nobody's going to let him leave. They can't kick him out for who his father is."

"You think that'll be the reason they give?" he hisses. "They'll plant something. They'll talk to one of the cooks, they'll find out about all the times he's snuck out—"

"Now who's being a conspiracy theorist?" Baekhyun shoots back, obviously annoyed. Surreptitiously, he lets his hand come to rest against the small of Zitao's back in a quiet gesture of support.

"Baekhyun, that's not helping either," Minseok says softly. "Chanyeol, don't worry about it. There's nothing we can do right now but wait until we're working with something other than a rumor. When that happens, we'll deal with it."

"Yeah," Jongdae chimes in. "It might be nothing."

"It's not nothing," Chanyeol insists fiercely. "They wouldn't pull him out of class during finals week for nothing."

"I'm going to go talk to Brodsky. This is ridiculous," Lu Han mutters. "We're supposed to keep an eye on all of the underclassmen and somehow find the time to study for our exams, and he's messing around with one of the prefects? It's too much." He wraps his arms across his chest angrily. "I'm ready for this entire semester to be over."

"What can we do to help?" Baekhyun asks. His face is more earnest than Zitao thinks he's ever seen it.

"Just go back to lunch. Keep your head down. Let us know if you hear anything from anybody," Minseok advises, rising to his feet. "As soon as we find anything out, we'll let you know."

 

Baekhyun drags Zitao back to his room after dinner. "Chanyeol's working on a project in the library," he informs Zitao, fumbling in his pocket for his room key. "I can't study by myself. Too quiet."

Zitao's grateful. Jongin and Sehun always talk so much when they're together—especially when they're supposed to be concentrating on something important. The school's sitting for math finals in the morning, the whole student body crammed in the gymnasium for four hours. It sounds miserable. Zitao's not looking forward to it, even though math is one of his better subjects. He's also got a paper to finish for Cermak, who'd decided to hand out one final essay booklet to be completed before the English exam on Friday.

"He's a sadist," Baekhyun says with relish when Zitao shows him the assignment in his planner. "I bet he won't even read it. What kind of sad person do you have to be to grade papers over winter break?"

Zitao drops his bag on the floor and looks around the room. It hasn't changed much since he moved out—there are still books piled high on Chanyeol's desk, clothes scattered across the room like the laundry hamper exploded. Seunghyun seems to keep his area neat and devoid of any personality. Zitao doesn't see any personal effects on the side table, not even something small like a piece of jewelry or a photograph.

"How's living with Agent whatever?"

"Disappointing. It's nothing like _IRIS_ ," Baekhyun jokes, toeing off his shoes. "I don't know. It's fine. He's quiet, keeps to himself. When he's not trying to crawl up Chanyeol's ass, of course."

Zitao snorts. "Please."

It's then that he spots it—the neatly-folded square of paper near the mat by the door. It's nearly completely hidden under Baekhyun's shoes but the white flash catches Zitao's attention. He rummages in the pile of shoes and unfolds it, smoothing the deep creases away against his knee.

"What's that?" Baekhyun queried, brows drawing together. "A note?"

"I think so, although I don't—know who it's from? It's not signed."

"How was it folded?"

Zitao looks up. "What? Why does that matter?" He squints suspiciously. "Don't tell me—"

"We've all got our own way of folding notes. Makes it easy. You never have to sign a note."

"Unbelievable," Zitao breathes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You guys are a little weird, you know that, right?" He holds up the note. "It was—kind of—I don't know, a triangle—thing." He tries to refold it with the lines but fails miserably.

Baekhyun flashes him a broad grin. "If by weird you mean _cool_ , then yes, I agree, and thank you." He bounces up on the balls of his feet to peer over Zitao's shoulder. "That's Kris's fold. His handwriting really sucks."

" _R ulfmw hlnvgsrmt. Nvvgrmt glmrtsg_ ," the note reads. " _Oryizib_."

Zitao squints at it, scratching his head. "What?" He passes the sheet of paper over to Baekhyun. He frowns at it for a moment before he nods and crumples it into a ball.

"Well, that's a ridiculously easy cipher," Baekhyun snorts. "He's really got to be more careful or we're all going to be in deep shit, especially if the administration's already out to get him."

"How is that easy? It doesn't say anything."

"It's an Atbash cipher," Baekhyun says, as if that explains everything. Zitao stares at him blankly. "Look. Write out the alphabet—A, B, C, and so on. Then, you write it out underneath in reverse—Z, Y, X, blah blah. That's the code, basically. A corresponds with Z, B becomes Y. You understand? It's very simple."

"So what does it say?"

"I found something. Meeting tonight. Library."

Zitao pouts. "You recognized it? Just like that?"

Baekhyun grins like he's trying not to be too proud of himself. "It's like any other language. Fluency comes with practice. You do enough of these and it becomes second nature."

Zitao shakes his head. "I've had to learn so much since I came here. How to dress, how to behave, how to read different languages—I'm never going to graduate."

"Can I tell you something?" He nudges Zitao with his leg. "Everybody feels that way when they first get here. Chanyeol—" he breaks off, face scrunched with a strange kind of insecurity, as though he's not sure if he should be telling any stories about Chanyeol. "Well. I'll let him tell you."

Zitao feels an overwhelming urge to fill the uneasy silence. He changes the subject: "Do you have any more work left to hand in? I've still got to write that paper."

Baekhyun's already absorbed in his book again. He gives a short, absent nod. "Ah—no, I don't."

"Do you—uh—think you can help me with it?"

Baekhyun looks up. "What do you need help with? I'm not going to write it for you."

"Can you read what I have so far?"

"I'd rather just read it when you're finished."

Sulkily, Zitao pushes his textbook away, the cover scraping quietly against the floor. Baekyun sighs.

"Fine. Let's see it."

Zitao leaps to his feet, knees stiff and cracking from sitting cross-legged on the floor for so long. He drapes his arms around Baekhyun's shoulders, chin nestled tightly in the crook of his neck. He breathes and Baekhyun shivers. _He's ticklish,_ Zitao notes.

"You have two sentences," Baekhyun says flatly, irritated. "What— _oh_." He giggles as Zitao runs an experimental tongue around the shell of his ear. "You need to finish this—"

"I will," he murmurs, pushing the notebook out of Baekhyun's hand. It lands on the floor with a loud _slap_. Baekhyun barely resists, lets the paper slide through his fingers so he can push Zitao's fringe out of his face to kiss him.

"I've got to study for my physics exam," he says as Zitao wraps his legs around him and pulls them onto the bed together. Zitao nods, finger hooked around the edge of Baekhyun's vest.

"We'll be quick."

"I didn't say that." Baekhyun laughs, winding Zitao's tie around his hand and yanking their faces together with a spluttering, wet gasp. "I just expect you to help me with it later," he murmurs against Zitao's lips.

Zitao's about to argue when he feels a hand unsnap his pants and he's powerless, especially when this is what he wanted all along.

✖✖✖

They're nearly caught twice by security guards patrolling the halls after lights out. Zitao has to tug an oblivious Sehun into an alcove and press him there, eyes menacing: make a noise and we're all dead. Jongin follows close behind, chuckling into his palms and woofing quiet puppy noises when Sehun stops obediently in his tracks at the same time as Zitao.

"Will you shut up?" Baekhyun's voice comes from around the corner. "Christ, Jongin, I could hear you from down the hall."

Jongin looks sufficiently mulish. "Sorry, hyung—"

"Yeah. You want me to call your noonas and tell them you're misbehaving?"

Jongin's eyes go wide. "No! C'mon," he whines. "Don't. Not right before Christmas. You know what they're like—"

"Then shut up." Baekhyun falls into step next to Zitao. Zitao casts him a sidelong glance and smirks when he sees that Baekhyun's shoulders are shaking helplessly with silent laughter.

Predictably, Chanyeol's the only club member missing when Minseok does a quick count on his fingers. "He sends his regards," Baekhyun says to the room at large. "He's too busy being Seunghyun's little spoon."

Jongdae guffaws. Kris shoots him a withering look.

While the others are busy cracking jokes about Chanyeol and Seunghyun fighting over the covers, Zitao takes the opportunity to survey Kris. He doesn't look any different from yesterday—still exhausted, still on edge. The corners of his mouth pull into a tight grimace.

"Are you okay?" Zitao asks. Last night seems so far away now, almost like he'd dreamt the whole thing.

Kris's eyes soften and Zitao knows he hadn't imagined any of it. "Yeah. Sit down, guys. We need to talk."

Zitao settles down at a table next to Baekhyun and leans over to rest his forehead against the bony jut of Baekhyun's shoulder. Jongdae squirms into the seat next to them and leans forward to whisper something in Jongin's ear, who giggles until Sehun nudges him to be quiet.

"What happened today?" Lu Han asks impatiently, hoisting himself up onto the circulation desk. "People were talking—"

"It's true," Kris says tersely. "Brodsky wanted to discuss the situation with my father. Among other things."

"Other things, hyung?" Baekhyun prompts.

"My future at _Akademie SM_." He buries his fists in his pockets. "They're not so sure this is an appropriate situation. What with... you know, Chanyeol's father being the president, and my father being—uh—my father being who he is."

"But—you're _friends_ ," Kyungsoo blurts angrily. "Do they even know that you don't speak to your father?"

Kris looks uncomfortable. "Actually, he's—he's been in touch, recently."

There's a sharp intake of breath from Lu Han, who looks deeply troubled at this revelation. Across the room, Zitao catches Kris's gaze and holds it. _You haven't told them,_ he says with his eyes. _You need to come clean._

Kris nods, almost as though he's reading Zitao's thoughts. "I'll come back to that in a second. They're letting me sit for my exams but I'm not supposed to go anywhere near Chanyeol. Seunghyun's been instructed to keep me away."

Baekhyun swears quietly under his breath, hands dropping to his lap in defeat.

"The faculty's going to meet. Before next term. To decide—uh——if I can come back and finish the year."

Yixing presses his fist to his mouth and shakes his head. "This is wrong," he murmurs. "You haven't done anything. They can't do this to you. Especially not this close to graduation."

"They can, unfortunately," Minseok says delicately. "It's stupid. But they're allowed to remove students who they feel aren't _contributing to the positive image of SM_. One of the benefits of a private school, I guess."

"But who told Brodsky?" Junmyeon insists. "It doesn't make sense. Kris, you've never said anything about your father to anyone outside of this club, correct?"

"Not a soul."

Sehun casts an accusatory glance around the room until Jongin notices and elbows him. "Hey. Idiot. It's not one of us."

"Maybe it is." Sehun sneers. "I mean, look at the facts. The club knows about the notebook, Yixing gets kidnapped and the notebook goes missing. The club knows about Kris's dad, Kris is probably going to be expelled because of who his dad is."

"Stop it, Sehun. Don't say things like that. We need to stick together. It's not one of us," Kyungsoo says quietly. "None of us would do that to Yixing or Kris." His jaw sticks out defiantly. "There must be someone else. Someone's been eavesdropping, maybe."

"Maybe," Kris echoes, sighing heavily. "As far as I know, your name's been kept out of everything, Zitao. I don't think—no, I know they don't know the identity of your mysterious benefactor. Dad did a good job covering his tracks. You'll get to stay."

Simultaneously, nine curious heads swivel around to stare at Zitao. "What—?" Jongdae tries, mouth flapping in astonishment.

"Our fathers were friends," Zitao mumbles self-consciously. His ears burn red, uncomfortable with the knowledge that he's been part of a big secret being kept from the rest of the club. "He sent me here."

Baekhyun pulls away to look at Zitao, just slightly enough that Zitao's head slips off his shoulder. Zitao feels a tight knot form in his stomach. He wants to lean forward to reclaim his spot but feels like there's no way to do that without drawing attention to the movement.

"Jesus, Kris. You think that's something you should have told us?" Lu Han's voice is hard with annoyance. "This whole time—you've known?"

"Don't you trust us?" Minseok chimes in softly.

"Yeah, I should have told you. All of you," he says meaningfully, looking towards Zitao. "I'm sorry, guys. I wanted—I don't know what I wanted. To be Kris full-time, instead of Yifan. You know what I mean? Everyone expects Yifan to be like his father, but Kris—" He rubs his face tiredly. "Anyway. I can't change the decision I made, but I am sorry. Don't be mad at Zitao. He only just found out last last night."

The others seem to accept this, although the silence stretches an excruciating length of time before Junmyeon clears his throat and speaks. "About last night..."

"Yeah," Kyungsoo agrees. "Where'd you guys go? What was the rush?"

"I thought I'd found something related to Yixing's kidnapping. I think I know where he was kept, but there's no way inside. Not without being caught."

"Why do you want to go back in there?" Jongdae asks. He's watching Yixing's face for some emotion—some sort of distress, but Yixing keeps himself reined in and stoic.

Kris relates the same story he'd told Zitao the night before—the task force, the murders, the importance of the notebook. "I think—" He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "I know it sounds crazy, but I think—there's someone here. Someone who knows something."

There's a sharp intake of breath from Kyungsoo. "Do you have any idea who? Someone on the faculty?"

Kris shrugs. "I have no proof, it's just a feeling."

"I think so, too." Junmyeon rises from his seat. "Wasn't I saying so earlier? Whatever you're chasing, it's too close. They're trying to get rid of you."

"But who, though? Brodsky?" Jongdae looks concerned. "He's the only one with the power to kick you out."

"Could be," Kris replies evasively. "I really don't know, guys."

"No, but Jongdae might be onto something. That makes a lot of sense—think about how weird he was when Yixing went missing. You remember, right?" Lu Han looks excited. "He didn't want to notify Yixing's parents."

"Hard to forget," Sehun mutters into his sleeve. "Scared the hell out of me."

"He stopped the police coming back to investigate," Baekhyun supplies helpfully. "Said the matter had been resolved."

"But he also hired the extra security," Minseok points out. "And made us work overtime to babysit you guys."

Jongdae holds up a finger. "Ah, but that could be a brilliant ploy to throw us off his trail."

A noise outside the hallway stops everyone cold for a moment. Kris looks nervously at the door for a moment. "Guys, we'll—we'll talk about this later." He coughs into his fist. "I'm not sure if we'll be able to meet again before exams have finished, but, uh, hopefully—hopefully I'll be here when the new term starts in January."

"You will be, hyung," Baekhyun says encouragingly. It's clear in the way he touches Zitao that he's made up his mind not to be mad. His hand on Zitao's elbow is steady, reassuring: _Sorry,_ it says.

Lu Han's moving to slide off the desk when his shirt gets caught on the edge of the binder used by the student librarians to process book returns. His hands shoot out reflexively, but in his effort to catch it, he loses his balance and topples backwards onto the floor with a reverberating thud. Everyone freezes for a moment, staring at each other with stricken expressions. Kris reaches out and twists the handle on the library door to hold it closed in case a security guard hears the noise and comes to investigate the noise.

"Shit!" Minseok exclaims as Jongdae runs around the table to crouch over Lu Han. "Shit, Lu Han. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," his voice croaks from underneath the chair. "Just—" He breaks off with a loud gasp.

"What?" Junmyeon asks. "Are you hurt?"

"No—" Lu Han murmurs. He sounds dazed. "Look." Zitao can't stop himself from yelping in excitement when Lu Han's fist appears above the surface of the desk, clutching a very familiar black, leatherbound notebook.


	5. Chapter 5

When Zitao gets back to campus in January he does not hitchhike this time. Lu Han had arranged to meet him at the airport and insisted on splitting a car. "Tell me everything you know," he says quietly when they're settled abreast in the backseat. His gaze cuts away from Zitao's face to meet the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror. "I haven't heard from anyone. Have you?"

Technically, the answer is yes: there's a series of e-mails on his grandfather's computer from various members of the Exo Club. All bullshit, mostly. Baekhyun sent him an hilarious play-by-play of a typical Byun family Christmas. Jongin wrote, too, although his e-mails contained far too many exclamation points. Even Sehun, who seemed eager to distract himself from the endless string of parties his parents insisted on attending as a family ( _"for the publicity :["_ he'd confided in a hasty post script).

For his part, Zitao had spent his break answering hundreds of his grandfather's questions about the school (except for the one about his benefactor—he vowed to take that secret to his grave) and hovering protectively over his mother wherever she went, _just in case_. They'd exchanged letters throughout the semester but it wasn't the same. He hadn't realized how much he missed his family until his mother called him Taozi and kissed him on the cheek and asked him if he'd grown _again_ (he had—nearly two full centimeters since August). He ate too much of his grandmother's cooking at each meal and sat up late every night watching the street below for any sign of suspicious characters. More often than not he awoke in the early hours of the morning with a forehead print on the glass from leaning against it and falling asleep. He'd wipe it clean and send a quick e-mail to Baekhyun: _Nothing tonight—all clear again_ , before crawling under the blankets to doze off again.

But that's not really what Lu Han's asking. "No. Not a word. Yixing said he was spending Christmas in Switzerland, though, so I don't know what I was expecting. What about Kris—?"

Lu Han shakes his head. "Nothing. I know Minseok's father was getting involved, but that was the last I heard anything." He fiddles with the zipper pull on his coat. "I'm hoping no news is good news."

"We would have heard," Zitao agrees. "And besides, Chanyeol would never let that happen. He'd never allow them to expel Kris."

"You're right." Lu Han turns to look out the window. The Czech countryside is still beautiful, even under a foot of snow. The forests off in the distance look like an illustration from a children's fairytale. He breathes against the glass and doodles a smiley face in the receding fog.

 

Baekhyun and Jongdae are waiting for them just inside the main hall. Baekhyun hipchecks Zitao and rescues the suitcase from his hand. Zitao's shoulder is grateful, but Baekhyun looks as though he's struggling with the heavy bag. "Everyone else is here," Jongdae announces sunnily. "We were hoping you'd get in tonight." He smiles at Zitao. "Flight okay? You're not too tired? We've got a lot to talk about. I think it's going to be a late night."

Lu Han doesn't look particularly nervous but the waver in his voice is unmistakable. "Everyone—and Kris?"

"Don't worry, hyung. It's over." Jongdae beams. "He's here."

The relief is overwhelming. Instantly, the atmosphere is lighter. Lu Han lets Jongdae inspect his new haircut before the group trundles up the back staircase to the dormitories. "Drop your things in your room and hurry across the hall," Jongdae urges, opening the door to Kris's room. A steady babble of chattering voices drifts through the crack, punctuated by the occasional barking laugh from Sehun. Zitao marvels quietly at how natural this all seems to him now. He can't pinpoint exactly when the club started feeling like his best friends—no, more than that. What he'd always imagined having brothers would be like.

_It's a nice feeling,_ he decides.

Baekhyun walks right past Jongin and Sehun's door, heading straight towards his own room.

"Uh. Baekhyun? I'm over there. Did you forget? I don't live with you anymore."

Baekhyun rolls his eyes, setting the suitcase on the floor to rummage around in his pocket for the key. "What do you have in there, by the way? Anvils? A dead body?"

"Why would I bring a dead body back to campus?"

"I don't know, you're weird. I don't ask questions." He pushes open the door. "When Jongdae said it's all over, he meant it's _all_ over. Seunghyun's been reassigned elsewhere."

Zitao gapes. "Wh—"

"Chanyeol had a hard time trying to shake him loose, but he finally came up with a pretty brilliant plan, if I do say so myself."

"And that would be?" He steps inside. It feels like coming home; different, of course, than when he'd stepped off the plane back at Liuting, but still familiar. The bed's stripped bare, two coverless pillows stacked neatly at the foot. He drops his backpack next to them and turns, expectant.

"He questioned Seunghyun in front of his father about the day-to-day routine. Made him admit, basically, that he was dead weight and interfering with Chanyeol's studies." He grins. "It may have helped that Chanyeol purposely blew that project he was working on before the break."

"He _what_?"

Baekhyun brings a shoulder up to his ear, the very picture of nonchalance. "Grades don't matter as much to Chanyeol. I mean, they do, but it's all a pride thing. No school's going to say no to Park Chanyeol, not with the family he comes from. So he sacrificed his perfect grades to get Seunghyun off his back."

"I can't believe that actually worked."

"Chanyeol's never flunked a project before. Chanyeol's never done poorly on _anything_ before. He's also never been required to have a security detail before, not for that long."

Zitao's cheeks rise in an amused smile. "I can't believe he did that."

"I can." Baekhyun takes Zitao by the wrist and leads him back out into the hallway. "It was very important to him."

True to Jongdae's word, the entire club's gathered in Kris's dorm. Zitao almost doesn't recognize Kris when his eyes fall on him: hair freshly-buzzed and no longer blond. Zitao squints, decides he likes it, and greets him with a tiny wave. Sehun and Jongin practically climb over Junmyeon in an attempt to be the first ones to officially welcome Zitao. He hugs them both at the same time. Lu Han's cackling quietly at a story Minseok's trying to tell. He's not getting very far because Jongdae keeps interrupting Minseok to talk over him. Chanyeol's there, too, sitting cross-legged on the bed next to Kris. He nods hello— _progress._ Zitao mirrors the action and notices the subtle way their knees are touching. He has to look at Baekhyun to have a more readily-apparent reason for grinning. It's a relief to know things are so _normal_.

Yixing halts his conversation with Kyungsoo and rises to his feet when Zitao comes in. His walking cast has come off, too. He's wearing a proper shoe and seems to be completely healed, although Zitao thinks he catches a flash of an ankle brace before Yixing hugs him.

Chanyeol can't stop _smiling_. Zitao notices for the first time how perfect his teeth are, how handsome he is when he's not scowling. He keeps running his hands through Kris's newly-cropped hair and laughing. After the third or fourth time, Kris swats his hand away.

"It's like you've never seen a haircut before," he scoffs. "It's only as short as yours, now."

"I've just never seen you with hair like this, hyung," Chanyeol says, fluffing it with his fingers. Kris shies away from his hand to escape any further abuse to his scalp.

"You still look handsome," Yixing offers. "Much more serious than when it was blond."

"I was going for serious," Kris jokes, flattening it absently against his forehead.

"What prompted the change?" Minseok asks. "Entrance interviews for school?"

Chanyeol stiffens, fingers clenching at his own kneecaps tightly enough to bruise. Kris suddenly seems very interested in the pattern on the bedspread. "No," he admits finally. "I withdrew all of my applications. I'm not continuing my studies after graduation."

Junmyeon is thunderstruck. "But _why_?" he asks desperately. "Is the school forcing your hand? Because if you need a letter of recommendation—"

"No, nothing like that," Kris assures the room. "I'm—going to take some time off. Go back to Canada with my mother. Maybe do some travelling. There's a lot I want to see that I haven't yet."

" _Hyung—_ " Jongdae begins, uncertain. Kris splays his hands to stop the interrogation.

"Guys, enough. That's not important right now." He looks straight at Zitao, eyes twinkling. "I believe Yixing's got something to share with us."

Zitao's heart lurches crazily in his chest. "You've finished," he says. "The code. You know what it says."

"Mostly." Yixing brandishes the notebook, an easy grin draped across his face. "I've got dates, I've got amounts, I've even got names." He hands it back to Zitao and strokes the cover affectionately. "There are a few pages at the back I still haven't figured out, but I made copies of those. You should make sure this gets to someone who knows what to do with it."

Zitao stares at the book in awe for a moment before he looks up. "Yixing, wow. I—I don't even know what to say—"

"Start with thank you," Baekhyun supplies. "And then maybe you can move on to indentured servitude."

Yixing's laugh is soft and musical. "Just thank you is fine. I'm glad I could help." He beams. "This type of thing is actually a lot of fun for me. I'll let you know if I get anywhere with the rest of it."

"That still doesn't solve the mystery of who kidnapped you and why," Lu Han points out. "If it was because of the notebook, they might still be looking for it."

Sehun sighs tiredly. "Not this again." He crosses his long, lanky arms across his chest and Zitao wonders lazily if Sehun's grown even taller since last semester. "Hyung, I only just stopped having nightmares about being kidnapped. Now you're saying it's still possible?"

"Why would anyone kidnap you?" Chanyeol uses his foot to shove Sehun off-balance. He topples to the floor and looks up, indignant.

Minseok steps in to offer Sehun a hand. "Okay, children, that's enough." He looks at Kris for a moment. "Well? What do you think?"

Kris looks at Chanyeol for a moment. They seem to have an entire conversation in the time it takes for Chanyeol's eyes to flicker and narrow. "I think," he says slowly, "that we should be very careful. Just in case."

"I agree," Kyungsoo chimes in. "And frankly—I know Seunghyun was an inconvenience, Chanyeol, but I felt safer when he was around."

"He's not coming back," Chanyeol says mulishly. His arms cross in front of his chest defensively, looking for all the world like a petulant child. "Over my dead body."

"No, Chanyeol, I'm not trying to make you miserable." Kyungsoo shakes his head. "All I'm trying to say is that it feels premature."

"Nobody goes anywhere alone, okay?" Lu Han says. His mouth presses into a line so firm his lips nearly disappear. "As long as that notebook is on campus, we travel in pairs."

"I'll—figure out where to send it." Zitao knots the cord around the notebook twice. "Maybe Detective Tsang will listen to me now that I've got proof."

Kris clears his throat. "Zitao, I'm warning you now—if you go through with this, it's going to get very ugly when they reopen his case," he says quietly. "I'm not telling you not to, I'm just letting you know—there's a reason it was covered up in the first place. There's someone in that district pulling the strings."

"Tsang and my father were very close. He'll want to punish them as much as I do." Zitao pats the book confidently. "He didn't have the information in here before. Now he does. He'll insist."

Kris considers this for a moment before he nods. "Alright. Fine. That's settled, then."

A tense silence settles over the room for a moment before Jongdae hesitantly pipes up. "Hyung. Before break, they—what happened? Why'd they let you come back?"

The bed creaks noisily under Kris's body as he straightens out his legs. "Well, Minseok's father being on the board helped."

Lu Han punches Minseok's shoulder gently in a wordless display of gratitude. "But Brodsky wanted you gone."

"Still does. At least, I think he does." Kris rubs his kneecaps. "Cermak helped, too. He's the one who lobbied the hardest to keep me, actually. He said it would look bad if they expelled a prefect for his family affiliations, considering some of the other students that have come through this institution."

"Cermak?" Kyungsoo is taken aback. " _Really_? But he's a soulless robot! He doesn't like any of us."

"He's not tenured yet, either, is he?" Baekhyun looks impressed. "He took on Brodsky like that? In front of the whole board?"

"That's so _weird_." Sehun whistles. "He's something else."

"He's been helping me out privately with my Czech," Kris admits. "He's actually not so bad one-on-one. Especially if you actually care about what he's teaching you. Maybe if you guys stopped sleeping in class all the time and actually did your homework, he'd have your back when it mattered, too."

Zitao flushes with embarrassment even though the remark was directed at the entire room.

Lu Han glances at his watch and barely manages to stifle a yawn. "Alright. I'm exhausted and jetlagged and I want to go to bed."

"Me too." Jongin rises to his feet, arms thrust above his head in a deep stretch to punctuate his statement.

"You slept all day," Sehun points out. Jongin rolls his eyes and feints a punch to Sehun's stomach.

"Zitao," Kris calls, almost as an afterthought. "If you're mailing that off, you should make copies. Keep hold of the original. Just in case something happens."

Zitao bows his head in agreement. He's been thinking about this all break, lying awake until the early hours of the morning turning it over in his head trying to make sense of everything—the murders, Yixing, the notebook— and it seems too good to be true. But here it is, finally: pages of Yixing's neat handwriting cramped in the margins, spelling out all of the reasons why his father was targeted.

He's let the notebook out of his sight once before. He's not going to lose it again, not when he's so close to vindication.

✖✖✖

It takes Detective Tsang five weeks to respond to the package Zitao mailed him. In that time Zitao had been given detention twice for skipping history to have snowball fights with the Exo Club on the back field. He'd received his midterm grades and was pleasantly surprised to see he'd gotten decent grades in nearly everything—there are even a few A's winking up from his report card. Everything's finally settled down and he feels, maybe for the first time, like a normal student.

Which is why he's not expecting the letter that's dropped into his lap at lunch time.

"Another letter from your mom?" Baekhyun asks, spoon scraping the bottom of his soup bowl with a loud clatter that makes Kyungsoo look up from his homework to scowl across the table at the interruption. "Didn't you just get one yesterday?"

"Shouldn't be," Zitao says, perplexed. He hooks his index finger under the flap and tears the corner open. "It's not her handwriting, anyway."

"Love letter?" Lu Han teases. "Why, Zitao, we didn't know you were keeping someone back at home. Have you been holding out on us?"

"Shut up," he groans. "It's—oh." He feels the color drain from his face. " _Oh._ "

Baekhyun snatches the letter out of Zitao's trembling hands and skims it. His face falls. "Oh no. I'm—I'm sorry, Zitao," he says quietly. Under the table, he presses their thighs together comfortingly as if to say _I'm here, it's okay. I still believe you._

Kris looks up as Minseok frees it from Baekhyun and reads it aloud to the table. "Zitao—I am afraid your friends are playing a joke on you. The _Red Hand_ is street slang for the Scorpion Cartel. It refers to the violent way they deal with their competition. There is no such thing as an international organized crime task force. This is the work of an overactive imagination. You will be terribly embarrassed to learn that the forensic cryptographer has just concluded her report on the notebook and has determined the content to be insignificant—grocery lists, etc. Please give it a rest. You are worrying your mother. —Tsang."

"Excuse me," Zitao says hoarsely. "I—think I forgot something upstairs in the room. I'll be right back." It's a feeble lie and the entire table knows it. Mercifully, none of them says a word as he rises to his feet and flees. He feels stupid. He doesn't want to cry in the middle of the dining hall.

He barely makes it back to the room. He can hear footsteps hot on his heels. His eyes are swimming with tears as he flings open the door. The wave crests over him and he drops to the floor on his knees, heaving sobs. He's furious with himself. He promised himself not to cry in front of them anymore but the ache in his chest is overwhelmingly constrictive. It's all he can do not to curl into a ball under the covers and never come out again.

All of a sudden there's an arm slung around his shoulders. _Baekhyun_ , he thinks, _thank God_ , until Baekhyun kneels at his left and puts his hand on Zitao's thigh. It's only then that Zitao realizes _it's Chanyeol_ and he laughs at the irony, a spluttering wet sound that comes out sounding more like a forlorn wail. Chanyeol pulls him closer and Baekhyun leans protectively into his other side. They sit there like that until Kris comes in and sits on Chanyeol's bed, clearing his throat without saying anything.

"What's next?" Baekhyun asks after an agonizingly long stretch of time. Zitao bites back a yelp.

It's the right question to ask. Whether Zitao's ready to answer it or not is a different story.

"We've got to do something. Can't we send it to your father—" Chanyeol starts. Kris cuts him off with a vehement shake of his head.

"He can't have his hands on it. How does he explain where it came from without revealing he's actually been working as an informant?" He folds his hands in his lap, face calm and composed. "It's up to Zitao. Zitao's got to decide where we go from here."

"Me? Why me?" Zitao looks up, tears dribbling messily down his chin. His hands are wet from trying to catch them and failing miserably. Baekhyun pulls a handkerchief from an inner pocket of his blazer and dutifully tries to mop up the worst of it. Zitao wonders if he should be a little more humiliated at how completely undone he's become in front of his peers, _again_. Instead, at present, the most he can muster at is a weak sense of gratitude.

"Do you still want to pursue this?" Kris's mouth twists in thought. His words are stilted, reluctant. "I mean, it's okay if you—if you don't. If you're if you're tired of this, we can just—we can pretend the notebook is gone. No one has to know."

Zitao's face crumples a little further. He knows Kris doesn't want him to give up—and he doesn't want to, not now—but it still hurts to hear the words out loud. "But the letter said—"

Kris puts a hand up to silence him. "He clearly doesn't know what's going on. It's—I mean, this was all need-to-know basis. Maybe he didn't ever need to know. And remember, to law enforcement, all gangs are on the same side of the law." He licks his lips, eyes cast downward. He almost looks ashamed. "The wrong side."

Zitao nods. "But Yixing—"

"I'm not wrong, Zitao." A soft, reedy voice comes from above them. Yixing's leaning against the dark wood to take the weight off his bad ankle. "Your father was killed because of the information in that notebook. I want them to pay for what they did."

"Baekhyun's right, then. What's our next move?" Kris asks grimly.

Zitao's not expecting Chanyeol to be the next person to speak. "What about—what about my dad?" he asks, loosening his grip on Zitao just enough for him to sit up straight and take a few deep breaths.

Kris raises an eyebrow. "What about him?"

"It's _his_ task force. He formed it. He should have the notebook." He looks around at the other faces in the room—Yixing, Baekhyun, before his eyes come to rest on Zitao. Zitao looks away, suddenly shy. "He'll know what to do with it. He'll believe Yixing."

"Chanyeol's right." Yixing sits down on the edge of Baekhyun's bed, wincing slightly. "Why not send it to the president? It's what we should have done all along."

"Zitao," Chanyeol rumbles. Zitao looks up. For the first time since he arrived at SM he feels like Chanyeol's speaking _to_ him instead of _at_ him, his eyes soft with concern. "Will you let me send it?"

"—copies—" Zitao hiccups and breaks into a coughing fit. Baekhyun pounds him on the back encouragingly.

"No. It has to be the real thing." Chanyeol senses Zitao's trepidation: it's obvious in the way Zitao rears back into Baekhyun's chest, shaking his head.

"—if he doesn't—" Sniffle. "—'s gone forever and—" Cough. "—never catch them—"

Kris stands. "Chanyeol's right. I don't—that's—I don't know why I didn't think of it weeks ago." He puts a hand on Zitao's head and ruffles his hair. "Don't worry, he's going to believe us. The proof is in that notebook. It's in four dead task force members. I don't think there's a safer place for it to be than with President Park."

_Safe. There's that word again,_ Zitao thinks. He wants to tell them that he doesn't feel safe—that he's got no idea what that word even means anymore.

"Hey," Baekhyun's voice snaps him out of his thoughts. "Come on. You can do this. We're all behind you now." He offers, the corners of his lips quirking upward in a lopsided smile. "We're not so bad, are we?"

"You're not alone," Yixing agrees. "Trust us."

Zitao rocks back on his heels, wiping furiously at his eyes with the handkerchief Baekhyun had relinquished to him. "This is the only way?" he asks.

"It's the surest way," Kris affirms. "This takes it out of our hands and puts it back where it belongs. The task force needs to take care of their own. It shouldn't be your responsibility to bring the Red Hand to justice."

Zitao rises on wobbly knees to pull the notebook from its hiding place underneath his mattress. He hands it to Chanyeol, thumb and forefinger still gripping tightly at the cord as they lock eyes. "This is all I have left of him. Don't lose it. I'll never forgive you if you do. He _was_ a hero, and not just to me."

Chanyeol looks sufficiently chagrined at Zitao's callback to their previous argument and bows his head humbly. "I'll take good care of it. I'll send it out right now." He dusts his knees off at looks at Kris expectantly. His desire to leave is obvious in the way he fidgets with the notebook, the knot of his tie, the lapels of his jacket.

Brushing past Baekhyun, Zitao slumps weakly onto his bed. He's overwhelmed by too many emotions crashing into him all at once, all of them intense. He feels the ache down to his bones. "I—"

"Stay. Sleep," Kris commands, almost like he's reading Zitao's mind. "I'll tell your professors you're not feeling well."

He dozes fitfully after that, listening to the bustle of students returning from lunch to retrieve books for their afternoon classes. He tries to count the hours but loses track when he closes his eyes for what feels like a few minutes and opens them to the room bathed in the orange glow of sunset. There's a stack of books that wasn't there before on a nearby chair. He makes a mental note to remember to thank Kyungsoo for collecting his homework—bailing him out _yet again_.

He lies still for a while and listens. The hallway is quiet—it's dinner time, possibly later. He briefly considers making an appearance in the dining hall but decides against it when he remembers he's supposed to be ill.

The door grates and opens. He doesn't roll over at the heavy sound of shoes clunking against the floor as they're kicked off. He knows it's Baekhyun even before he carefully peels the covers back and crawls underneath them. His heat is so familiar, the angles of his body and the way they conform to Zitao's—he thinks he'd probably recognize him on that alone, even without his scent or the soft rhythm of his breathing.

"Hey," Baekhyun whispers quietly into the nape of Zitao's neck. "Are you asleep?" He nudges the skin behind Zitao's ear with his nose. "Zitao. I know you're awake."

Zitao actually debates in his head for a moment whether or not he should feign sleep before he turns and pulls Baekhyun on top of his chest. He wraps his arms around Baekhyun's narrow shoulders and kisses him roughly because he doesn't want to have any of the conversations Baekhyun could possibly want to have with him right now. Baekhyun laughs and rakes his fingers through Zitao's hair.

"Alright," he says, thumb tracing Zitao's cheekbone. "Alright. I get it. I won't. Not now." And that's all. He seems to understand Zitao's need for something— _anything_ —that doesn't involve talking about his father.

For the first time in a long time there's no frantic urgency to get off. It's more of a comforting gesture when Baekhyun slides his fingers under the sheets to curl one by one around Zitao's dick and stroke it, his unhurried wrist loose and languid. His tongue is in Zitao's mouth but they don't kiss as much as they just share each other's air. Zitao comes with a soft grunt against Baekhyun's teeth. Baekhyun doesn't pull his hand out of Zitao's sleep pants until he's soft again, settling it against his hips to pull their bodies flush.

"Chanyeol mailed it, by the way," Baekhyun murmurs drowsily. "I watched him drop it in the outbox. It's all going to be taken care of now."

Zitao nods into his pillow. A warm, relaxed calm prickles his skin, a combination of post-orgasm endorphins and the knowledge that they've finally, _finally_ done everything they can to catch his father's killers. _It's over,_ he thinks and for the first time he believes it could be true.

He sleeps and does not dream of anything.

✖✖✖

Days pass. Zitao stops thinking about the notebook so much, only when he's alone with Chanyeol in the dorm and feels like he needs to fill the silence with benign conversation in an attempt at being _friendly_ (or at least that's what Baekhyun encourages every time he leaves them alone together to play a game of tennis outside with Junmyeon). The awkwardness is a small price to pay for the security of knowing it was finally in the right hands. _"He can't tell me much,"_ Chanyeol tells him one day. _"We're not even supposed to know that the task force exists. Just—chill. You'll know if anything big happens. It'll make all the newspapers. Now stop asking, I haven't been told anything that you haven't already heard."_

So that's something, at least. With that particular weight off his shoulders, Zitao is free to concentrate on the other reason he's at _Akademie SM_ : to get a world-class education. Zitao's so focused on improving the few B's and lone C (English, which, after his dealings with Cermak, comes as a surprise to absolutely no one) he'd received the previous semester that he doesn't notice how much time has gone by until Jongdae starts asking about his plans for the long spring break weekend.

"Hmm?" He looks up from the textbook he's got balanced on his empty breakfast plate. Baekhyun slings an arm around his shoulders and shakes him.

"You've read that chapter three times already. Are you having trouble understanding it or are you trying to memorize it word for word? Jongdae just asked you a question."

"Both," Zitao says, using his thumb as a placeholder in his book. "What was the question?"

"I asked if you were staying on campus for break." Jongdae wiggles his eyebrows. Zitao has come to learn that this means he's got something up his sleeve—usually something mischievous, and always something that results in someone getting in trouble. The last time he'd wiggled his eyebrows like that, Zitao had assisted him in stealing all of the teachers' brass nameplates off their doors. It had resulted in the two of them cleaning windows and an additional week's worth of detention for Jongdae when he refused to divulge the location of Lefebvre's nameplate (safely under his mattress, if any faculty member had bothered to check).

Zitao snatches the last bite of toast out of Baekhyun's hand and chews it triumphantly as Baekhyun looks on in dismay at the sudden theft of his breakfast. "Yes," Zitao manages, voice garbled by bread and Nutella. "Too expensive to fly home."

"Excellent. It's settled then," Jondae says. "We're all staying back. Yixing wants to do another outing. Like old times. It'll be your first one! We still need to initiate you properly."

Kyungsoo's head pops up like a wary animal when he overhears this. "He—what? Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"Sure." Jongdae grins, his feline smile stretching broadly between both ears. "Campus will be pretty empty. It's the perfect time to do it."

"What did Kris say?"

Jongdae swivels in his chair to look at the end of the table. "Hey, _duizhang_ ," he calls slyly. Kris raises his middle finger in acknowledgement but does not break off his conversation with Junmyeon to dignify Jongdae with a response.

"Looks like he's saying no." Kyungsoo smirks. "You know he hates that, why do you do it?"

"Please. He loves it. He just hasn't realized how much yet. It's on, don't worry about it." Jongdae flaps his hands. "Prepare yourself, Zitao. It's intense."

"It's really not," Chanyeol intones. "All they do is blindfold you and then—"

"Hey! Asshole! Shut up!" Jongdae laughs. "You're ruining the surprise."

"Not really that much of a surprise if it's easy to figure out what you're doing right away." Chanyeol shrugs and goes back to his porridge.

"What are we doing?" Kris is standing over at Jongdae at this point, fingertips gripping into the shoulders of his navy blazer. "Haven't you earned enough demerits this year, Jongdae?"

"You'd know, duizhang." Jongdae grins and ducks away from his grasp. "You issued at least half of them. Bad form, by the way. Not cool."

"Hey. Don't—uh—don't call me that, okay?" Kris's brow creases. "They always used to call Dad that. It's—it's a little weird to hear it directed at me. Call me hyung or asshat or senpai or whatever the fuck else you want to call me, I really don't care. Just. Not. You know. That."

Across the table, Chanyeol's hand freezes on the way to his mouth. The spoon slops most of his porridge back in the bowl. Jongdae's cheery expression sobers. "Sorry, hyung. I didn't realize. I just—"

"I know," Kris assures him. "I know you were just trying to be funny. I'm—I'm not a leader though. Not—I'm just. I'm not."

"Well," Kyungsoo interjects, trying to diffuse the awkward tension. "Jongdae was just telling us that Yixing has plans to organize another game."

Kris looks back to Yixing, eyes narrowing tightly at the corners. "I hadn't heard."

A smug sort of satisfaction crosses Kyungsoo's face. "Told you, Jongdae."

"Why not, though?" Baekhyun chimes in. "The long weekend ones were always great. Besides, it's not like there'll be too many people on campus. Everybody else ends up going home or at least out of town sightseeing for a few days."

Kris shakes his head. "I—"

The first warning bell rings. He glances at his watch. "I've got to go back up to my room before first hour. I grabbed the wrong notebook. Look, we'll _talk_ about it later, but I really don't think it's the best idea."

"Told you," Kyungsoo gloats, tossing his napkin onto his plate. "Give it up, Jongdae. I've had enough excitement for the rest of my life.

Jongdae pouts. "This isn't over yet!"

 

Zitao's _almost_ late to his first class. It's Baekhyun's fault, of course—retaliation for stealing his breakfast had involved shoving Zitao through the heavy swinging door of the first floor bathroom to rut against him in a stall. His tie's fucked up from Baekhyun pulling at it, yanking him closer, closer. He's in the process of retying it when he ducks through the doorway and stops dead in his tracks at the sight of Headmaster Brodsky at the front of the classroom.

"Mr Huang." The final bell rings. Brodsky gestures at the empty desk next to Kyungsoo with an open hand, his eyes steely and unamused. "So nice of you to join us."

"The hell?" Zitao whispers to Kyungsoo when he slides into his seat. He can still feel the heat of arousal burning his cheeks, a fine sheen of perspiration collecting at his hairline. He dabs at it carefully with his sleeve. "What's he doing here?"

"Did you run here? You're out of breath," Kyungsoo asks, whispering out of the corner of his mouth. "Cermak's sick. He called in last-minute. We're stuck with Brodsky."

"Fuck," he mutters. "That's all I need. He hates me even more than Cermak does."

"Mr Huang." Zitao flinches. Brodsky-as-instructor doesn't seem to speak as much as he seems to bark orders. He leers in their direction. "Since you seem so eager to interrupt my class this morning, you can start the reading today."

 

If he'd thought class dragged by under Cermak's supervision, Zitao's pretty sure it goes _backwards_ under Brodsky's. Every minute seems to last an hour. To make matters worse, he's caught very time he dares to steal a glance at the clock hanging over the door. By the time the bell rings, he's been assigned a thousand lines: _I shall take my education seriously. I will give my full attention in my classes._

"What were you _doing_?" Kyungsoo demands the moment they're out of earshot. Zitao presses his fingers into his temples and sighs.

"I don't know. That was pretty bad, wasn't it?"

"What was bad?" Baekhyun slots himself in between Kyungsoo and Zitao. "A little late to class this morning, were we? Zitao, shame on you." His eyes twinkle mischievously.

"Hey." Zitao takes a half-hearted swipe in his direction. "That was your fault. And no, I just—class didn't go very well today. Brodsky's in for Cermak."

"Oh, shit." Baekhyun whistles. "That's never good. Brodsky's a taskmaster."

"Yeah. Zitao's got to write a thousand lines for him by tomorrow," Kyungsoo says. He sounds like he wants to be angry but the way his corner of his mouth keeps twitching with amusement betrays him. "Something about focus and being attentive in class."

Baekhyun cackles, head thrown back with impish glee. "Good job, kid. We'll make an Exo member of you yet."

"Shut _up_." Zitao manages to land his target this time, smacking Baekhyun square in the stomach with the back of his hand. Baekhyun grunts at the assault. "You're going to help me write them."

"For a fee."

"How about for your life," Zitao threatens. Baekhyun wrinkles his nose. The warning bell rings.

"That's our cue," Kyungsoo says, taking a fresh grip on his bag. "You coming, Zitao?"

Zitao glances down the hall, considering the bustling students with a critical eye. "No," he says finally. "No, I'm not."

Kyungsoo frowns. "You're really going to skip second class when your first one went that badly?"

"Just one class. I need to unwind." He looks at Baekhyun. "Come with me."

"Don't need to ask me twice. I live to skip my classes." Baekhyun grins and links his elbow with Zitao's. "Bye, Kyungsoo."

Kyungsoo retreats down the hallway, shaking his head in quiet disbelief. Baekhyun leads Zitao by the elbow and through to the back stairs, humming cheerfully.

"So. What exactly did you have in mind?" he asks, his voice bouncing off the walls of the stairwell. "I thought I unwound you earlier."

Zitao feels the blush spread from his face all the way down to his toes. "Nothing like that," he mumbles bashfully. "I just wanted some company."

"Uh-huh." Baekhyun holds open the door to the dormitory floor and ushers Zitao inside. "Company." He chuckles into his fist. "Well, that's good—Chanyeol's in the room right now, so you'll have plenty of company while you unwind. Unless you need some privacy for that sort of thing?"

" _Baekhyun,_ " Zitao groans. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

"Plenty of things." Baekhyun winks and flings the door to their room open wide. "Luckily for you, I—oh." Confused, he breaks off and rubs the back of his neck. "That's weird. He should be here—he said he wasn't feeling well and wanted to lie down for a while."

"Infirmary?" Zitao suggests, shrugging off his blazer and hanging it on the back of the door. Baekhyun shakes his head.

"He hates the infirmary. They're always trying to stuff you full of paracetamol and send you back to class with a note saying it's a _psychosomatic manifestation of homesickness_." He rolls his eyes. "Couldn't ever be the shitty food or the ridiculous amount of schoolwork we're assigned on a daily basis."

Zitao blinks at the completion of Baekhyun's rant. "I don't even know what that means."

Baekhyun scoffs. "You don't know much, do you? I'm going to check in Kris's room a minute. He's probably there. The bed's a hell of a lot more comfortable than this one."

Zitao drops his bag next to his bed and kicks his shoes across the room in dramatic fashion. He's barely had time to loosen his tie and unbutton his cuffs before Baekhyun's storming back into the room.

"Zitao. Come—come here, now," he croaks. Any trace of delight is gone from his face, replaced with an ashen pallor that makes Zitao obediently spring to his feet and follow him back down the hall to Kris's room.

"What's going on—what?" he asks, growing increasingly frantic when Baekhyun doesn't answer his question right away. "Baekhyun, what's wrong?"

Baekhyun pushes open the door and gestures inside with a flattened palm. "I—we're in deep shit, Zitao. I need to go find Lu Han or Minseok or—shit, what the fuck do we _do_?"

The room's a fucking _mess_. It looks like whatever went on, there'd been a struggle trying to stop it from happening. The chair sits overturned on its side, Chanyeol's blazer trapped underneath it. The bedsheets are a tangled mess. However—and this was perhaps the most chilling sight—both pairs of shoes were still lined up on the mat behind the door.

"Look," Baekhyun whispers just as Zitao sees it—the blood on the pillowcase, the side table, the floor.

Zitao feels himself go woozy again, head reeling dizzily at the carmine fingerprints smudged down the drawers and to the planks below.

"Don't you fucking faint on me now," Baekhyun hisses, jabbing a pointy elbow into Zitao's rib with unnecessary force. "Wait here. Don't—don't touch anything, don't let anyone go in. Not a fucking _word_ until I get someone."

Zitao's barely had a chance to collect his thoughts and take a few deep breaths before Lu Han and Minseok are there. Minseok brushes Zitao aside to peer inside the room, Lu Han's chin hovering over Minseok's shoulder.

"Fuck. What the fuck happened?" Lu Han asks. His voice is controlled as he tries to panic as quietly as possible. "We need to call the police."

"Brodsky first," Minseok says, doing an abrupt about-face. "He's in for Cermak today, right? That's what I've been hearing."

Zitao swallows loudly, his tongue heavy at the back of his throat. Baekhyun pushes at his shoulder and he looks up almost like he's startled to discover he's not alone. "Uh—yeah. Yeah. Cermak. Brodsky— _fuck_ ," he whimpers. "What—?"

Minseok's already gone. Lu Han puts his hands on Zitao's shoulders and squeezes. "It's okay, everything's going to be fine."

_Lu Han is a terrible liar,_ Zitao thinks. His mind is racing as he tries to _think, just slow down—where would they go?_ His brain alights on a brief, vivid memory of a small, snowy town in the moonlight woods. A church. A trap door under the carpet in the sacristy. Kris's voice hanging in the still air: _Not here. In town, though._ In town.

He reels back like he's just touched an electric fence. "Shit. _Fuck._ I know where they are, I need to—"

Baekhyun grabs him on his way past. "You need to _what_? Where are you going all of a sudden? Someone's probably kidnapped Kris and Chanyeol and you're trying to go somewhere by yourself? Are you insane?" He punches Zitao in the arm and it's _almost_ enough to hurt. "I'm not going to let that happen."

Lu Han gapes in horror. "Zitao, _no_. Absolutely not."

Zitao draws himself up to his full height. He hasn't been this confident of a decision he's made in quite some time. "I have to. I'm the only one who knows. I was the only one who went with Kris."

"Do you even remember how to get there?" Baekhyun raises an eyebrow. "It was dark and snowing. Everything's going to look completely different now."

"No," Lu Han repeats. "I'm in charge of you—I'm not letting you wander around the Czech countryside by yourself. You'll get lost and then we'll have _three_ students gone."

"I'll find it." Zitao's voice is firm. "I remember. We turned right out of the driveway and drove for an hour. You could see the church through the woods. Just—I need to go now, before Brodsky gets here. I won't have a chance to after that." He looks directly into Lu Han's eyes, pleading, "Please. Just distract him and let me go. I'll find them. I _will._ "

Lu Han heaves an exasperated sigh. "The way I see it, we've got ten minutes until the police show up. Maybe fifteen." He looks at his watch. "I won't be able to stall them forever. With two students missing, they're going to want a complete head count. We're going to be under full lock-down when they figure out one of them's Chanyeol."

"I know where they are," Zitao insists. "I have to go."

"You can't. Aren't you listening to me? Not to mention it's _dangerous_ —they took Kris and Chanyeol. This isn't a joke—they can kill you." He grabs Zitao's forearm. "I can't let you. Kris would never forgive me if anything happened to you."

"So he takes care of us and nobody takes care of him when he's in trouble?" Zitao wrenches free. "Fuck that. I'm going. "

"But Brodsky—"

"Can expel me. He's going to eventually, anyway." Zitao smiles crookedly. "I should give him a really good reason to. I don't belong here."

" _Zitao,_ " Lu Han admonishes, eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. "That's not true—"

"I'm going too." It doesn't register with Zitao that Baekhyun's the person speaking until he snatches at his palm and pulls it close. "If he says he remembers, then I believe him. We'll get there faster than the police, anyway."

"But what—what if they have _guns_? We don't even know who did this. We don't know how many there were. You could be walking into a trap." Lu Han looks miserably helpless, eyes nervous and glued to the hallway door. Brodsky will be there any second. "You guys—you can't do this by yourself, it's _stupid—_ "

"Hyung, it's simple." Baekhyun shrugs, speaking slowly as though the answer's the most obvious thing in the world. "Wait half an hour and then tell them where we went. We can't get into that much trouble in only half an hour." Zitao resists the urge to laugh at Baekhyun's bold-faced lie.

"Half an hour," Lu Han repeats dumbly.

"Half an hour. That's all." Baekhyun squeezes Zitao's hand for luck and pulls away. "Well, hyung? If we're going, we need to leave now."

Lu Han licks his lips. "Take the back stairs, then." Zitao and Baekhyun stare at him for a moment, eyes wide.

"W-what?" Baekhyun stammers, temporarily deaf from shock. "You—really? That worked? You're going to let us go?"

"Go! Get out of here," Lu Han hisses, swatting his hand in their direction. "You be careful and you fucking bring them back."


	6. Chapter 6

It turns out they’d timed their escape exactly right. They’re rounding the corner to the back staircase when they hear Brodsky’s arrival. "What is the matter _now_ , Mr Lu? I’ve had quite enough of this—"

"He’s having a terrible year," Baekhyun remarks as soon as they’re safely two flights down and heading for the exit. "I bet he gets fired after this. Losing three students in one year."

"Five," Zitao corrects him. "Us, remember?"

"We’re not lost. We’re leaving campus to rescue them. There’s a difference."

Conversation between them dies out after that. They’re too busy cutting across the lawn, darting stealthily in between trees to avoid being seen by any number of spectators who may be peering out the front window by now, anticipating the police’s arrival.

"This was easier at night," Zitao admits after a narrow escape from a groundskeeper lugging a wheelbarrow full of mulch across the driveway to the flowerbeds. Baekhyun laughs and pulls Zitao to hide behind a particularly girthy spruce.

"It’s more exciting when you might get caught." By now they’re almost out of eyeshot and they relax—the danger of being spotted by someone on campus out here is miniscule. They walk in a single file through the drainage ditch, Baekhyun’s hands resting on Zitao’s hips to keep his balance on the uneven ground.

Baekhyun allows himself to be dragged for half a kilometer before he hears the telltale crunch of gravel and launches himself back onto the shoulder to wave frantically at the passing traffic.

"Are you insane?" Zitao yells. "You don’t know who that is!" The car slows to a stop. The driver’s a middle-aged man with a heavy, dark moustache that curls over his upper lip and down past the corners of his mouth. Through the windshield, Zitao can see that he looks frightened when Baekhyun knocks on the passenger side window and mimes for him to roll it down. After a brief conversation, Baekhyun turns and motions for Zitao to come.

"He’s heading in the same direction. He says he’ll give us a ride."

Zitao’s legs carry him up the embankment and into the car before he stops to question what he’s doing. "How do you _know_ , though? You don’t speak Czech."

"I know enough that hand movements can make up the difference. Plus, there’s always the universal language," he says, patting the wallet in his pocket. "Couple Euro for a drive he’s already got to make—he’d be stupid to say no." He leans over Zitao to pull the seatbelt across his chest and buckle it. "Now, keep your eye out for this church, okay?"

Zitao’s heart hammers against his ribcage as the car accelerates. He’s afraid he was too confident, that maybe he doesn’t remember the church as well as he thinks he does. He sits perched on the edge of the seat, peering out of the window, anxiously clasping and unclasping his hands until Baekhyun puts a hand on his wrist and murmurs for him to stop, _you look like you’re up to something._

He watches the clock and wonders if he’d remembered it right, that perhaps it hadn’t been longer, when the familiar spire of the church emerges from the leafy canopy ahead.

"There!" he exclaims so forcefully that the man slams on the brakes, eyes popped wide with fear. Zitao turns to Baekhyun in excitement, slapping at his arm. "It—there, we can walk from here. Let’s get out."

Zitao’s already sprinting halfway up the road by the time Baekhyun’s freed himself from the seat belt and tossed some money at the bewildered driver. "Zitao! Wait—up," he pants. "Where are we _going_?"

He doesn’t stop running until he’s at the edge of town, looking out over the buildings circled neatly in the valley below. Doubled over, he looks up at Baekhyun with his hands on his knees. "Kris—Kris said there was a man. In the village. Who knew—who knew something," he pants, wiping his face with the edge of his shirt.

"Something." Baekhyun stares at him blankly, chin dripping with sweat. "Are you—we just risked expulsion for a generic guy who knew something? Zitao—you’ve got to do better than that. Think. What did he say?"

Zitao squints at the church in the distance. "It wasn’t here—this wasn’t the hiding place. The trap door was too small." He hums to himself, still hunkered down in a half-squat trying to catch his breath. What had Kris said? He can see his face as he said it, remembers his mouth moving but the words aren’t there, just the slanted moonbeam across his face coming from the window—wait.

Window.

Glass.

"Glassmaker?" he asks.

"You tell me," Baekhyun sighs impatiently, using Zitao’s shoulder to dry his face. "Come on, Zitao. We don’t have much time."

"Glassmaker," he decides, more sure this time. "He knew where they were keeping Yixing. He told Kris. Maybe—maybe they’re still using that place. Maybe he can tell us where."

"Fine. Let’s start there." Baekhyun takes the lead this time, steering Zitao by the elbow down the cobblestone streets. "Keep your head down. It’s pretty obvious where we’re from. If Kris and Chanyeol really are here—well, come on, let’s move."

The glassmaker’s shop is the last building at the end of a narrow lane, a tiny door underneath a sign that reads _Sklenář_ in peeling letters. Baekhyun shoves his way through, tiny bell at the hinge tinkling softly to announce their arrival.

"Uh— _ahoj_ ," Baekhyun begins, suddenly shy. The glazier blinks slowly from behind his work table, frozen in the position he’d been holding when the boys had burst in.

"Is that it?" Zitao looks incredulous. "Wow, you’re so good at this. Sir—uh—two friends. Boys. Taken. Chanyeol, tall." He holds a hand up above his head. "Kris, also tall." He points at his eyes and then at the man. "Have you seen them?"

The man shakes his head slowly, easing the pair of pliers from his hand and onto the bench in front of him. "No—no boys. Youth hostel?" He pastes on a syrupy smile. "They help you, maybe."

"He’s lying," Baekhyun murmurs, pulling a glass rose down from a nearby shelf. The man looks nervous, like he’s afraid Baekhyun’s going to break it. Baekhyun raises it and the man cringes, waiting for the telltale shatter that never comes. Instead, he taps it against his hand. "Red. Red Hand. You understand what I’m saying? Red Hand. Where?"

The man’s eyes bug slightly in recognition. "No—no trouble. You keep."

Zitao feels tears of frustration welling up in his eyes. "Help us," he pleads. "You helped Kris. Help us now."

Baekhyun throws the rose on the floor. It splinters into a thousand tiny ruby shards. The man puts his hand over his face, cowering. "Where," Baekhyun demands. "Now."

"I seen no boys—"

"No?" Baekhyun drags the contents of an entire shelf onto the floor. The sound is deafening. Zitao looks on, aghast: he’s too horrified to look away from Baekhyun’s destruction, but he’s also worried that someone on the street heard that and will come in to see what’s going on. "I’ll just have to check behind all of this glass to make sure _you’re_ not hiding them." He starts to pull another shelf out when the man puts his arms in the air.

"Stop—stop, okay. I tell you. Please don’t." The floor is gritty with sand under the man’s feet as he crosses to the window and peers out, shoes scuffing quietly with each step. "Tavern," he says finally. He doesn’t turn to look at them. "Upstairs."

"Tavern?" Baekhyun asks. "Where? If you’re lying, I’ll come back and destroy the whole shop. Look at my face. You know I’m telling the truth."

The man extends a trembling finger to indicate the building across the street. He’s practically _whimpering_ as he puts his hands across his face and shakes his head. "No—no trouble," he wails. "I saw nothing."

"Hey. We were never here," Baekhyun says fiercely, grabbing at the man’s sleeve. He points at Zitao and himself, then shakes his head. "You didn’t see us."

"No—no trouble," he repeats a third time. "You go now." He’s too busy kneeling on the floor of his shop, surveying the wreckage Baekhyun had left behind, to watch them leave.

"That was a little—harsh?" Zitao remarks as soon as they’re back on the street, hand latching to Baekhyun’s wrist. "Did you have to break all those things?"

Baekhyun’s shoulders lift to his ears in an exaggerated shrug. "They got to him first. He only responds to fear."

Zitao wrinkles his nose. "I think you’ve been watching too many American movies."

Baekhyun scoffs. "Hey, it worked, didn’t it? You started _crying_ , just like a kid—like anyone’s going to respect that." He sets his mouth in a firm line. "If we find Kris and Chanyeol, I’m going to sleep fine tonight. Come on. The tavern’s this way."

The tavern the glazier had indicated looks abandoned, windows caked with layers of grime that were probably impervious to soap and water by now. Closer inspection reveals it’s not—just dirty (" _Rustic,"_ Baekhyun jokes as Zitao wrinkles his nose in disgust). There’s a quiet lull coming from inside—the usual food establishment noises: the clatter of plates and silverware, empty glasses clinking together, a thousand threads of unintelligible conversation weaving together into a low, buzzing cacophony. Baekhyun leans into the doorway as far as he can manage without being detected and motions with his hand for Zitao to come closer.

"We should go through the back," he whispers. Curious, Zitao raises an eyebrow.

"Why? It’d be easier to blend in with the customers if we went this way."

"Isn’t that Cermak?" Baekhyun jerks his chin in the direction of the bar. "He’ll see us and then we’ll _definitely_ be expelled."

"What? Seriously?" Zitao gawks in astonishment when he sees the professor leaning on his elbows, talking with the middle-aged woman pouring drinks. Zitao watches him drain a highball glass of its contents and set it back on the bar, intently focused on a young man traipsing up the staircase. "Isn’t he supposed to be sick? What’s he doing here?"

"Like you haven’t ever called in sick to have a day to yourself." Baekhyun rolls his eyes. "Not our business what he does on his days off. Come on. This way."

It’s the school kitchen all over again, sneaking through the service entrance and past busy cooks to tiptoe up the maid’s staircase to the few guest rooms the inn offered as accommodation for weary out-of-town guests. The hallway is dimly lit, lined with peeling floral wallpaper. It looks exactly like you’d expect an old, run-down inn to look: a little spooky, a lot dirty. _I wouldn’t pay to stay here,_ Zitao thinks. Somewhere behind a closed door, someone is shouting.

"Do you hear that?" Zitao tugs on the tail of Baekhyun’s jacket nervously. "Do you think—"

Baekhyun puts his fingers to his lips. There’s a raucous, shattering crash—the tinkling sound of something fragile being destroyed within. A moment later the door bursts open and Kris storms out, chest heaving. His cheek is purpling with a fresh bruise and his shirt’s torn and missing half of the buttons. A rivulet of blood winds around his wrist and trickles down the curve of his hand to drip on the floor. He freezes when he sees Baekhyun and Zitao waiting at the top of the stairs. He blinks in disbelief, mouth dropping open with surprise.

"You—" He doesn’t have a chance to finish what he’s saying. Two moderately burly, broad-shouldered men come barreling through the doorway behind Kris, who takes off at a sprint. "Run," he yells. "Get out of here, guys."

Zitao doesn’t even have a chance to react. His body springs into action, his muscles trying desperately to recall something, anything, from the wushu instruction he’d received as a child. Again, that regret of giving into the stupid impulsive urges he’d felt as a teenager—martial arts just felt uncool at the time when all of his friends were involved in school sports that revolved around teams and camaraderie. At the time, he wanted that. He wanted to play football or basketball or literally anything else that allowed him to spend more time with his school friends. He may have stopped asking Zitao to return to it, but his father had been deeply disappointed in him, and Zitao is feeling that disappointment acutely now as he executes an incredibly sloppy punch to the man’s jaw. Sifu Luo would be appalled at his form.

It lands, though, and the man reels, temporarily winded. Beside him, Baekhyun sweeps his leg out in a low kick that takes the feet of the assailant’s friend out from underneath him. Zitao shoots him an impressed half-grin. The corners of Baekhyun’s mouth lift impishly in reply.

"Hapkido," Baekhyun explains.

"I thought it was dance!" Kris calls, pushing open a door across the hall. Baekhyun scowls and digs his toe a little deeper into the man’s ribs out of spite.

"No reason a kid can’t do both, you know," he grumbles.

"We’ll talk about your hobbies later, Baekhyun—give me a hand?" Kris lifts the first man under the arms and drags him into the open room. There’s a loud, reverberating thud as he drops his body against the carpet and emerges from the darkness, dusting his hands on his pants. "I don’t know where their backup is, but they’re not far—we need to hurry." He disappears back into the first room he’d come from.

Zitao and Baekhyun each grab an arm of the remaining unconscious man and lift him to his feet. "Hyung," Baekhyun says. "I’m so glad to see you."

"Baekhyun, can you finish what you’re doing first? Just drop him in there," Kris commands, brandishing a high-backed chair as he returns. "No, anywhere’s fine, right on top of his friend, if you want."

The man groans a little as he lands on the carpet and rolls into his friend’s motionless form. Baekhyun impulsively kicks at him again, the flat part of his heel striking against the man’s shin.

"Baekhyun—get out of there, I need to lock them in before they wake up," Kris admonishes. "No time for that now."

Baekhyun retreats obediently and stands back with Zitao, watching Kris wedge the chair securely underneath the door knob with a length of rope he produces from his pants pocket. "There," he says, admiring his handiwork. "That’ll hold long enough to get us out of here."

"Where’d you find the rope?" Zitao asks feebly. Kris turns and looks at them as though he’d temporarily forgotten they were standing behind him.

"You—fucking— _idiots_ ," he seethes, pulling them both in for a bone-crushing hug. "What are you doing here? How did you—?"

"Hyung—your hand," Baekhyun says, wriggling free from underneath Kris’s arm to inspect his knuckles. "Are you okay?"

Zitao puts a hand up to Kris’s face, probing the bruise with the pad of his thumb. "What did you—what—" he fumbles. The words just won’t come to him anymore. He’s got so many questions and not a single clue how to ask any of them.

"This is probably not the best time to talk about this. The guys watching us—they’re not—they’re not going to be unconscious forever, and Cermak will be back any minute—"

Zitao feels as though a piano’s been dropped on him from a great height. Baekhyun’s expression is similarly stunned.

"Cermak?"

"We saw him downstairs," Zitao says faintly. "He’s—?"

"Yeah. He’s—he’s been behind all of it. Yixing, Brodsky finding out about my father, this whole—" He breaks off impatiently. "We’ll talk about it later. You guys—I need help with Chanyeol." He swallows loudly. "They roughed him up. He’s _really_ hurt."

Baekhyun’s spine stiffens, instantly on high alert. "Chanyeol? Where is he? Is he okay?"

"I’m not—I’m not sure. He’s in here," Kris mutters, wrapping his tie around his grazed knuckles as a makeshift bandage. He leads them into the tiny darkened room he’d emerged from earlier. The floor lamp lies shattered at the door and Kris points it out as they pick their way over a third thug’s motionless body. "Careful. Broken glass. He wouldn’t go down any other way. I had to hit him."

Baekhyun nods. He looks like he’s going to be sick. "Where’s—holy shit, _Chanyeol_."

Chanyeol is motionless, slumped over in an armchair. The rope from his loose bindings is uncoiled, discarded at his feet where Kris had managed to pull them loose. Zitao reaches out to smooth his hand across Chanyeol’s throat, fingertips anchored behind his jaw to feel for a pulse. His chest tightens as he probes, searching, and then exhales all at once in a dramatic huff. It’s there, thank God—thrumming, steady and warm.

"He’s alive," Zitao says, voice breaking with relief. "He’s just out cold." He steps back to take a better look at Chanyeol. His left arm hangs limply down by his side. The hair at his temples is matted with fresh blood from a gash across his forehead. Baekhyun hovers nervously, his hand ghosting over Chanyeol’s shoulder, afraid to touch him and do any more damage.

"He dislocated it," Kris informs them, wiping at his streaming nose with his sleeve. "He tried to run—they—they held him down. Is he—is he okay? I haven’t—I couldn’t check, I was..."

Zitao’s disconcerted at the way Kris drops into a sudden crouch, his face buried in his hands. Kris had been so strong by himself for such a long time that Zitao feels uncomfortable watching him crumble, like he’s intruding in on an incredibly private moment. He turns away.

"If we get him out of here, he’ll be fine," Baekhyun says impatiently, peering out of the window at the street below. "Hyung, _please_. We have to move him."

Kris nods a few times, trying to compose himself before he’s confident enough to slot himself underneath Chanyeol’s good arm and pull him to his feet. The sudden change in elevation seems to rouse Chanyeol and his eyelids swing open in dazed confusion.

"Kris?"

"Yeah," he says quietly, taking a fresh grip around Chanyeol’s waist. "I’m here."

"Where’d—what—where’d they go?"

"I kicked their asses," Baekhyun chirps sunnily like they’re not taking the stairs two at a time trying to escape from an international gang of murderers and thieves. Chanyeol’s woozy but he’s not _that_ out of it and has the presence of mind to snort derisively into Kris’s neck.

"You and what army, jackass?"

"This one." Baekhyun sticks his fist under Chanyeol’s nose, face split into a wide grin.

"You’re a fucking idiot," Chanyeol informs him, and Zitao thinks he catches the hint of a smile before he grimaces again at the pain in his shoulder.

It had been relatively easy for two boys to sneak past the bustle of the kitchen unnoticed. Four boys, however, successfully attracts the attention of the dishwasher who sees them and drops a pan into the sink full of soap suds, shouting angrily. "Hey! You!"

"Shit. He’s one of them. _Run,_ " Kris urges just as Cermak comes barreling through the door, hand fumbling at his hip for a pistol.

"Yifan!" Cermak bellows. He takes two steps towards them and nearly somersaults over an unsuspecting cook trying to get out of the commotion. Cold with panic, Zitao nearly trips over his own feet trying to get over the threshold and down the rickety kitchen steps, Baekhyun at his heels and shoving at him to keep him on his feet. Kris is slower, weighed down by Chanyeol who’s trying to run but keeps stopping to hold his arm and bite back tears.

"Which way?" Baekhyun calls over his shoulder. Behind them, Zitao can hear the voices of their pursuers getting closer. Kris stops to loop Chanyeol’s arm back around his shoulders and looks around. They’ve left the labyrinth of narrow alleyways and are standing on the edge of town between the church and the massive expanse of forest that surrounds the village.

"Woods," Kris pants after a split second. "We’ll be able to lose them there."

It’s a decent idea, except no one’s got a clue how to navigate a forest that doesn’t have any trails. Each oak tree looks remarkably like the next and the forest floor is slippery with old leaves from the previous autumn. Baekhyun trips once, body launched by a sapling in the undergrowth that sends him sprawling onto his hands and knees. He’s laughing about it as Zitao pulls him to his feet and brushes the dirt from his face, but Kris looks nauseous with fear. Noises like that carry, give away their position to their hunters far too easily.

It’s not long before they’re lost. They can still hear the scratchy whine of the dishwasher and a booming, husky voice that’s unmistakably Cermak’s, calling to each other from between the trees. The boys double back on their trail, switching directions to head away from the sound. Zitao is completely disoriented by now—he’s got no idea where they’ve been going except deeper into the forest, which isn’t much help when each tree looks much the same as the one that came before it.

After another ten minutes or so they slow their pace—the voices behind them are much fainter, now, and getting further away. They’re able to move through the brush more quietly when they’re not moving at a dead sprint. "Can—can we—stop—a minute?" Chanyeol asks suddenly, voice weak and small. Zitao turns to look at him underneath Kris’s arm: he’s pale and sweating, good hand cupped protectively around the elbow of his injured arm. He clings tightly to Kris’s torso with his other arm. "I just—" He swallows loudly and his face tinges green. "I feel like I’m gonna pass out again."

Kris cranes his neck, listening for any sign that they’ve been discovered. When he’s satisfied that they’re still alone, he looks down at Chanyeol. "We’re close to the road. Can you keep going just a little longer?"

Chanyeol shakes his head, knees already sinking to the ground. "I’m sorry—I really just—need a minute." Kris cups a concerned hand around the back of Chanyeol’s head as he considers what to do next. They’re alone—for now, at least, but there’s no way of knowing how long that will last. At last he comes to a decision and nods, eyes resolute.

"We need to get to the road. It’s our only shot of getting out of here. Zitao, stay here with him," Kris instructs, tugging at Baekhyun’s jacket until he complies and takes it off. Zitao barely catches it when it’s tossed in his direction. "Here, take this. Keep him warm—he’s going to go into shock if we don’t get him some real medical attention soon."

"I‘m fine," Chanyeol slurs, chin sinking against his chest. "My arm just hurts a little."

"We’re close—I think I heard a truck in the distance. Baekhyun and I are going to the road. We’ll be back with help soon, okay?" Kris looks at Chanyeol and his face contorts like he’s going to cry, but he catches himself before it gets that far. "Keep him talking."

"Of all people," Chanyeol wheezes as soon as Kris and Baekhyun are out of earshot. "He leaves you." Zitao ignores this comment in favor of more pressing concerns: getting him upright against a tree for support, tucking Baekhyun’s jacket over his shoulders. Chanyeol gulps and closes his eyes, wincing. " _Fuck_ , this hurts."

"You’re going to be okay. They went for help," Zitao soothes, using his knuckles to wipe away the perspiration collecting at Chanyeol’s temple. Chanyeol ducks his head away, frowning.

"Quit it. That stings," he grouses, swatting at Zitao to stop touching him. He puts his hand gingerly up to his injury, tracing the length of the cut across his forehead with trembling fingers. "So I guess—I guess you were right, after all," he says, laughing a little. It’s a raw, broken sound that rips from deep inside his ribcage. "About all of it."

"If that’s your idea of an apology—" Zitao begins.

"It’s not." Chanyeol exhales slowly through gritted teeth. Zitao waits with bated breath, but nothing else comes.

"My—my dad died for yours. For his cause," Zitao whispers. It’s probably the wrong thing to say at a time like this and he _knows_ better but he can’t stop the words from pushing past his teeth. "My dad died for something yours believed in. Isn’t that—doesn’t that count for anything?"

Chanyeol’s eyes snap open, a sort of dull fury lurking within. "What’s that got—I have _no_ interest in being like my father," he says, incensed. "This is all his fucking fault in the first place. Trying to make the world a better place— _please_ , he’s just doing it for the ratings bump. You think—you think he cares about the body count? Being anti-organized crime _polls_ well—"

He leans forward the more worked up he gets until he’s in danger of toppling forward onto his bad shoulder. Zitao shushes him and tugs the jacket back under his chin. "I—I _do_ , though," he murmurs finally, when Chanyeol’s settled in again.

"You do what?" Chanyeol asks drowsily. He straightens his legs out in front of him and thrusts his good fist in his pocket. For the first time, Zitao notices that Chanyeol’s been running around the woods this entire time in a pair of socks. He remembers, belatedly, the two pairs of shoes back in Kris’s dorm and winces at the thought of this terrain on what amounts to little more than bare feet. Chanyeol’s feet must be killing him. Kris’s, too, now that he thinks about it. Zitao puts a hand on Chanyeol’s shin to steady him.

"I want to be like my father." The corners of Zitao’s mouth pull down into a sad smile. "He was a good man. I think I owe that much to my mother, at least."

Chanyeol chuckles, eyelids sinking again. "God. Do you ever listen to yourself talk sometimes? You’re so lame." He’s quiet for a moment before he adds, "I think you’re doing okay, though. He sounds like he was pretty brave."

"Yeah, I guess he was." Zitao smiles. It’s as close to a compliment as he’ll probably ever get from Chanyeol. In the distance, he hears Kris and Baekhyun shouting excitedly— _hold on, help’s on the way, help’s coming._ It won’t be long, now. "You would have liked him."

✖✖✖

Zitao’s not sure what wakes him first—the alarm under his pillow, or the bouncing pair of feet on his bed. "Baekhyun," he groans into his hands. "Why the fuck are you awake so early?" The pillow does very little to muffle the shrill, piercing drone of the clock.

Baekhyun springs up on his toes, sending a fresh wave of motion through the mattress springs. "Come on, we’ve got to get ready for graduation. I don’t want to be late."

" _I’m_ not graduating," Zitao mutters, rolling over to face the wall. The alarm grows impatient at being ignored and switches itself off. "Why do I have to go, anyway? My flight’s not until later—"

"A whole summer without me. How will you ever survive?" The bed creaks ominously, frame shuddering as Baekhyun tries a few test bounces. "You’re coming back though, right?" He nudges Zitao with his foot. "Right? You’re not going to leave me alone here?"

"I might as well. Education’s already paid for." Zitao snorts. "But don’t start that shit—you’re not alone. It’s impossible to be alone here."

The mattress squawks in protest as Baekhyun drops to his knees and leans in to press his lips against Zitao’s bare shoulder. "Good. Good," he murmurs, suddenly shy. "Who knows. Maybe I’ll get bored and come visit you." He raises his eyebrows. "That’s okay, right? I can do that?"

Baekhyun’s hip fits snugly in the concave of Zitao’s palm, the thin cotton of his sleep shorts hiked up to reveal embarrassingly pale thighs. Zitao thinks they’re cute. "Can’t be away that long?" he teases.

"What’s the point, if I don’t have to be?" Baekhyun shoots back, eyes resolute, mouth curved upward in a bold smile.

"Don’t you have things to do for your dad? Weren’t you telling me about an internship—?"

"Yeah, about that." Baekhyun licks his lips, nose grazing the cool skin of Zitao’s cheek. "I told him I didn’t want to work for him this summer."

"How’d that go?"

"After he calmed down and stopped screaming at me about throwing away my future, it was a good talk." Baekhyun laughs when Zitao rears back, eyes wide. "Don’t worry—we came to an understanding. I can’t sit around the house all summer. As long as I find something to do, he promised to keep his mouth shut." The distance between their faces shrinks until all that’s left are a few millimeters of stale air. "So. There’s that. For now, anyway."

Zitao kisses him then, a slow, languid curl of his smile against Baekhyun’s mouth before he settles back against the pillow, content. "Don’t get up. Skip graduation and stay here with me instead. I just want to get some sleep—"

"No!" Baekhyun nuzzles his face in the crook of Zitao’s neck. "No time for sleep! You can sleep on the plane. _Chanyeol’s back,_ " Baekhyun announces cheerfully in the same tone of voice you’d use to tell someone that they’d won a vacation cruise or a brand new car. It’s just as exciting to Zitao, who sits bolt upright, suddenly awake.

"Really?" He can’t hide his smile as he rakes his fingers through his sleep-tousled hair. "He’s better? They let him come back? I thought he wouldn’t be back until after summer break."

"Guess he convinced his dad to let him come. He’s downstairs right now—Kris stopped by to let me know. You were still asleep." Baekhyun bounces from Zitao’s bed to the floor. "Now. I’m going to shower. You coming?"

 

The breakfast table is abuzz with excitement that morning. Lu Han’s sitting there reading the paper, graduation cap on the seat next to him. He looks up when Zitao and Baekhyun finally enter, his eyes crinkling into a cheerful smile.

"Last time I’ll see you idiots coming in late for breakfast," he says. Zitao lowers himself into the seat next to Jongin and rolls his eyes at the obvious jab. "I feel like I need a photograph to remember this moment. Here. Zitao. Look—it’s about your father. It made the front page of the international section." He narrowly misses spilling Kyungsoo’s glass of juice as he pushes the front page across the table.

Zitao stares for a moment at what Lu Han’s just handed him. The headline, proclaiming in big bold letters: _COP’S MURDER REVEALS UNDERGROUND CRIME SYNDICATE_. He feels something twist in his chest and then Baekhyun’s leaning over his shoulder to read along with him, breath hot on his cheek. He feels the knot relax away like it had never been there at all. It’s bittersweet, really, seeing photographs of his father alongside the grizzly details of the Red Hand’s international dealings. There’s a photograph of President Park in the bottom corner of the page, next to Chanyeol’s school photograph: _"...eighteen-year-old son of South Korea’s president, kidnapped just last month by a gang member who had gained employment with Park’s private school..."_

"I can’t believe they used that picture."

Baekhyun jerks away from Zitao’s shoulder to look up. Chanyeol’s standing at the head of the table, an easy smile on his face and his left arm still wrapped in a sling. He’s wearing a nice pair of jeans and a light blue button-up dress shirt. There’s a tight row of fine stitches across the cut on his forehead. He looks so comfortable, like he’s just wandered in from upstairs somewhere, that Zitao has to remind himself that he’d been recovering back at home for the past few weeks.

Chanyeol certainly looks a lot better than he did the last time Zitao had seen him. The color’s returned to his cheeks, his eyes bright and twinkling as he greets Kyungsoo with an awkward one-armed hug.

 

He’d been so sallow by the time they’d loaded him in the car from the woods he was practically a ghost, head lolling between Kris’s shoulders and Baekhyun’s, his consciousness weak and thready at best.

Kris had explained the rest of what he knew in the car after they’d been rescued: that Cermak had been involved peripherally with the Red Hand while working at Charles University until they’d learned of Yifan’s—now Kris’s—location nearby. His higher education had made him a perfect candidate for the recently vacated position as professor of English. He’d exploited Kris’s affinity for languages to gain his trust ( _"I’m so stupid, I can’t believe I didn’t consider the possibility,"_ Kris lamented. Baekhyun did his best to console him by patting him on the back). He’d also been the one to inform Brodsky of Kris’s family situation. It was all calculated—dangle his place at SM in front of Kris, put him in danger of expulsion, only to defend him in front of the entire faculty. Perfect plan. Even if Kris _had_ suspected him before, he wouldn’t have had much of a reason to after that.

"He took Yixing, too," Kris informed them. "I’m not sure _how_ he managed it, except that it was probably after dinner. The hallways are usually empty then. The only thing that makes sense to me is the window in the first floor bathroom. It’s big enough for someone to climb through, and it bypasses dragging an unconscious kid through the front door." He shook his head. "The big guy I hit with the lamp—Dominik, I think? Not that it matters—was complaining to Cermak that he’d grabbed the wrong kid last time. Not hard to figure out who he was talking about."

"Jesus. But why Yixing in the first place?"

"His insider knew about the notebook. Cermak had his eye on _you_ initially, Zitao, until he saw Yixing in the library with the notebook—Yixing’s got a reputation for being very good with decrypting things, I guess Cermak had heard about it and couldn’t risk Yixing telling you what was in there."

"How did they know about the notebook? _Nobody_ knew."

"Here’s where it gets tricky," Kris said, gnawing on his thumbnail. "I don’t know how to—"

"What is it?" Baekhyun asked.

"Zitao. The—the insider. In your father’s precinct." A long pause. "His partner’s name was Tsang, wasn’t it?"

"Yes." Zitao looked at him blankly for a moment before realization set in. "No," he whispered. "No, it can’t be. You’ve got that wrong."

"He had the notebook decoded months ago. Cermak had copies and everything. He didn’t tell you, Zitao—he needed to get the money moved, which was taking time."

Baekhyun shifted Chanyeol back over to Kris at this point and leaned into Zitao’s side, hands clasped around his knees. "Are you going to cry?" he murmured. "Don’t. I’m so sorry."

"No, I’m not." Zitao was too stunned to feel much of anything. _Fucking Tsang._ Everything fell into place, the deck of cards shuffled and spread out before him. He’d been responsible for the cover up from the very beginning. He’d been the missing link, and he’d been right under Zitao’s nose the whole time, comforting the boy he’d made fatherless and visiting the woman he’d made a widow. Zitao exhaled angrily through his nose, fists balled against his thighs, but for once he was completely out of questions to ask.

Kris and Chanyeol had been admitted to the hospital that night while Baekhyun and Zitao were sent home to deal with the consequences of skipping off campus. Brodsky’s secretary had come to fetch them in her rickety old Škoda and lectured to them in the backseat about responsibility and behavior and _the expectations of this institution_ for the entire drive while their knees dug painfully into the seat in front of them.

When Baekhyun and Zitao arrived back at school, the building was still crawling with police who were roaming the halls, furiously questioning students and faculty alike about Cermak’s involvement and _had they seen anything suspicious these past few weeks?_ The answers vary, most of it’s bullshit—all of it’s speculation. Cermak had kept to himself. Everyone’s bewildered—no one really _knew_ Cermak when they really thought about it, but he’d seemed harmless enough—an effective instructor, stingy with praise and perfect scores, but otherwise a nonentity.

Little did they know.

Lu Han and Minseok were waiting in the foyer for them as they were escorted inside by the elbows. "They’re okay. It’s Cermak—" Baekhyun began.

"We know. They found him in the woods while they were looking for you." Minseok raised his fist in a sign of solidarity.

Lu Han called down the hall after them: _"Good job!"_

Brodsky was waiting for them in his office, hiding behind a stack of papers a few feet high. He was still in the same clothes he’d been wearing that morning in class, his eyes bloodshot and weary. He looked defeated. The school year had finally taken its toll.

"I should expel you both," he began before they could even take a seat. Baekhyun hung his head guiltily.

"But sir—"

He looked up from his desk. "Mr Byun, I am speaking."

Baekhyun pressed on. "But—Zitao didn’t—it was all my fault, don’t—"

"I _should_ expel you," Brodsky continued as if he hadn’t heard Baekhyun. "However, President Park has insisted that this incident remain off your school records. Considering the circumstances—faculty involvement, the fact that you saved his son’s life, I’m inclined to agree."

"Holy shit," Baekhyun swore before he could stop himself. "Are you kidding me?" 

Brodsky scowled. "That’ll be quite enough from the two of you for the remainder of your time here at _Akademie SM_. President Park’s recommendations only go so far here—he is, after all, not the headmaster."

"Yes, sir."

"You’ll need to speak to the police—we’ve arranged for it to be done in private. The student body seems—eager? to gossip. You are not to compromise—"

"Not a word, sir," Baekhyun promised, hand clasped over his heart.

"You’re dismissed."

They were barely around the corner before Baekhyun reeled Zitao in by the shirt collar to claim his mouth in a fit of excitement, his tongue warm and insistent as it traced the edge of Zitao’s teeth.

"That’s not the last time we’re going to get called into his office, is it?" Zitao asked, after he’d finally broken free.

Baekhyun grinned in reply, lips red and swollen as he wiped them off with the back of his hand. "Now, where’s the fun in that?"

 

Zitao’s thinking about all of this when Baekhyun draws his attention back to the article. "Did you see this?" he asks softly, slipping his palm around the back of Zitao’s neck. Zitao shakes his head at Detective Tsang’s mug shot as it squints angrily from the page. "I’m so sorry, I can’t even imagine—"

"I know. Mom’s—Mom’s really upset," Zitao says finally. She’d called the day they’d arrested him. It had made the news that night—his affiliations with the Red Hand, the debts he’d owed them, the departmental cover-up he’d ordered when his partner had gotten too close to figuring out the identity of the Red Hand’s police insider. "I just—I thought he was trying to help me, but he was—I think this is all my fault. If I hadn’t asked him about the notebook, if I hadn’t come here—"

"Hey," Jongdae says. He’s been eavesdropping. "That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Nobody asked for this to happen—I, for one, am glad you’re here."

"Me too," Yixing chimes in, offering Zitao a gentle smile from his seat next to Junmyeon. "I’m sorry how things worked out, but I’m still glad you’re here."

"Me, three," Chanyeol says quietly, like he’d rather be saying this to literally anyone else in the world. His spare hand is heavy on Zitao’s shoulder as he squeezes it for a moment. "Thanks. For. You know. And—uh—I never had a chance to say it, but—I’m sorry."

Zitao can’t resist the urge to needle him a little bit. "For what? I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Really?" Chanyeol rolls his eyes. "This is how you’re going to be? I just got back."

"I made your bed while you were gone. Is that what you meant?" Zitao smiles sweetly, batting his eyelashes a few times.

"You asshole," Chanyeol grumbles under his breath. "You know what I mean. You’re really going to make me say it? Fine," he sighs, exasperated. "You saved my life, and—"

"Oh, _that_..." Zitao grins, a wicked smile curling across his face. "I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear."

Chanyeol shoves Zitao into the table with as much force as he can muster with only one hand. It’s a gentler roughhousing than before, though—more imbued with fond tolerance than outright irritation.

Junmyeon looks over at the commotion. "Chanyeol! Do I have to issue demerits for physical violence? You’ve only been back fifteen minutes."

"Hyung," Chanyeol protests. "You can’t hand out demerits yet. You’re not officially a prefect until the fall."

"Do you want to test that theory?" Junmyeon laughs, tossing a bread roll in Chanyeol’s direction. It bounces off his arm and lands in Sehun’s lap, who inspects it briefly before cramming the whole thing into his mouth. "Welcome back, Chanyeol. Good to see you’re feeling better."

Kris appears in the doorway, impeccably dressed in a suit that looks like it cost more than a year’s worth of tuition. He looks lost, eyes searching across the sea of students before they settle on their usual table and his face softens. His gown is draped over his forearm, cap dangling limply from two fingers. "Hey you," he murmurs to Chanyeol. "I told you to wait in the foyer." He winks when Zitao catches his gaze.

"I know. I’m sorry I walked away, I just wanted to say hi." Chanyeol waves at the table. "I’ll see you guys after the graduation ceremony, okay?" He hooks his good arm around Kris’s waist and allows himself to be led away from the table.

"That’s pretty bold," Minseok notes, draining the last of his water from his glass as he stands. "Right in the open like that, both sets of parents somewhere on campus." He looks down at his watch, then to Lu Han, then back at his watch. "You ready? They needed us five minutes ago."

"Shit. Why didn’t you say anything?" Lu Han rises to his feet. "Alright—my last official act as prefect is to formally reprimand Zitao and Baekhyun for the stunt they pulled last month. Demerits for both of you." Zitao’s face falls. Lu Han takes a deep breath and continues, "And my last official act as a member of the Exo Club is to say thank you, guys, because if you hadn’t gone after them, two of my friends may have been in serious trouble." He leans forward to pinch Zitao’s cheek. Baekhyun dips his head away just in time to avoid the physical affection but he’s beaming with modest pride from ear to ear anyway.

"Do you really have to graduate?" he asks earnestly. "Can’t you stay on another year, hyung?"

Lu Han guffaws. "Get away from me. You’re creepy like this. I like asshat Baekhyun much better." He gives a short wave to the rest of the table, and just like that, he’s gone.

 

The ceremony’s held outside on the front lawn of the _Akademie_. It’s incredibly hot, the June sun beating down on the rows of underclassmen in their dark blazers. Zitao keeps pulling at his tie and gasping quietly, wondering if he’d be given a demerit for disrupting graduation by collapsing on the ground with heat stroke. The graduating fifth years don’t look much more comfortable—the academic robes and caps they’re sporting don’t look as though they’re particularly breathable. Zitao thinks he spies Lu Han pulling faces behind Brodsky as he speaks to the audience of students and families but he’s not paying enough attention to what’s happening on-stage to know for sure.

When it’s over, Kris comes over to greet Zitao, flanked at a distance by Chanyeol and Chanyeol’s old PSS agent, Seunghyun. "It was the only way his father would agree to come," Kris explains when Zitao can’t stop staring. "He’s still a little nervous—most of the Red Hand’s sitting in a cell right now, but... you never know."

"Makes sense."

"Do you want to meet him? I could—"

"No, no," Zitao says quickly. "I wouldn’t know what to say." He looks up at Kris and sighs. "I just—thank you, so much. And thank your father, too. I’m—really grateful for everything you’ve done for me."

Kris smiles. "You’re going to be fine, Zitao."

"I’m not so sure. Without you and Lu Han and Minseok looking out for us—"

"Junmyeon is more than capable, just give him time," Kris assures. A hard look crosses his features. "No more sneaking off campus, though. I know the Red Hand’s been eradicated from SM, but, uh—let's retire from all of that, okay?"

Zitao nods enthusiastically. "I don’t think you have to worry about that. I’ve had enough adventure to last ten lifetimes. We all have."

"I’m—uh—I’m taking some time to do some traveling," Kris offers, suddenly awkward. "I’m—when I’m in Prague, I’ll make sure to come back for a visit. Just to check in on you guys, see how you’re doing."

"You’re not going to write?" Zitao feigns injury at this.

Kris laughs. "I could do that, I guess. Postcards?"

"Yes, please." Zitao looks around and sees an older man standing awkwardly to the side of the stage, tapping a program against his palm and watching them. He seems hesitant to come anywhere near Seunghyun, who’s had an eye trained on him since the conclusion of the ceremony. As Zitao narrows his eyes to see more clearly, he’s hit with sudden recognition—Kris’s eyes, Kris’s mouth. "Your father came?"

"Yeah. Prosecutor’s office arranged it as a favor. Last outing before the case begins and he’s sequestered, I guess, until the trial’s over and he doesn’t have much of a reason to be who he is, anymore." The lines in Kris’s forehead deepen. "I think he’s looking forward to witness protection. He’s ready to have a different life."

"I’m sorry," Zitao says. "I guess that means—?"

"Yeah. I probably won’t see him again." Kris shrugs. "I can’t say I’m too upset about it. My loyalty’s always been with my mother and he knows it. I’ll just be glad not to look over my shoulder anymore. It gets old, you know. Worrying about his old enemies."

"And us, too," Zitao adds.

"Hm?" Kris tears his eyes away from his father to look at Zitao.

"Your loyalty is with us."

"And you." Kris smirks. "All of you." His gaze flits to Chanyeol, red-faced and doubled over laughing at something Baekhyun’s saying to him. Baekhyun raises his voice half an octave in an impression of someone (Zitao can’t be sure who, but it sounds like a dead ringer for Lefebvre) and Chanyeol nearly chokes on his own tongue trying to breathe.

"And Chanyeol—?" Zitao asks after a moment. His voice is very small all of a sudden, like he doesn’t trust it not to fail. Kris looks back to Zitao, brow puckering.

"What about him? Of course I am."

"You said your father wanted you to stop."

Kris sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, he did. And as much as I hate him for being right about anything, it’s probably best that we do." He says this but Zitao sees something in the way he watches Chanyeol, the corners of his mouth tilting upward in a devastated sort of smile. Chanyeol looks over and Kris breaks into a full, broad grin and Zitao knows it’s never going to be that easy for him to just walk away.

"You’re still young," Zitao reminds him. Kris puts him in a gentle headlock and ruffles his hair.

"I’m not taking any more life advice from a kid," he says. Despite the admonishment, there’s no heat in it. "Thanks, Zitao. I’m—I hope you’re really happy here, and I hope things—I don’t know. I hope your life is everything you ever wanted it to be."

"I don’t really know what I want it to be," Zitao confesses. "I’d never really thought that far ahead."

"You will." Kris stretches his arms above his head and yawns. "You’ve got time."

Zitao nods and watches Kris return to Chanyeol, their bodies angling towards each other like two magnets yearning to reunite. Kris runs his hand over the strap of the sling, checking it for slippage. In response, Chanyeol leans forward to sink his teeth into Kris’s shoulder. They both dissolve into ringing peals of laughter, Chanyeol holding onto Kris for support as his knees almost buckle out from underneath him. They radiate comfort, a kind of relaxed ease that comes with familiarity. Zitao hopes things work out for the better—he’s never seen Chanyeol so peacefully cheerful as when he’s around Kris. He also knows that it won’t be easy—but after this year, he’s starting to realize that few things worth having ever are.

"Hey," Baekhyun says at Zitao’s side, interrupting his thoughts. "Are you done saying goodbye? I’m dying to get out of here. It’s getting a little too sentimental for me."

"Yeah, I’m coming." Zitao takes a deep breath and turns away. The car’s waiting and he’s ready to go home.


End file.
